November 17, 2014 · Exit133

Up For Discussion: Paid Sick Leave in Tacoma

Tacoma City Council can expect to get an earful on the subject of paid sick leave at this week's Council meeting. Supporters of a requirement that Tacoma employers provide paid sick leave to employees are rallying the public to show up for this week's Citizens' Forum comment opportunity.

In response to public interest Mayor Strickland announced last month that she would be working to draft an ordinance requiring Tacoma employers to provide paid sick leave to employees. To that end, the Mayor has been meeting with stakeholders, the City Attorney, and others. No formal proposal has been released yet, but the Washington Retail Association shared some details of a conversation they had with the Mayor on the proposal.

Employees could earn 3 days of sick leave per year.
Sick leave would be earned based on hours worked by an employee (e.g. 1 hour paid sick leave per 40 hours worked).
Businesses would be required to provide proof of a paid sick leave policy in order to obtain or renew a business license.
Businesses with employees already covered by collective bargaining agreements, or policies giving more than 3 days per year would not be affected.
No businesses or non-profits would be exempt based on size.
Enforcement would be complaint-driven.

As you might expect, public opinion is mixed for the idea of a local level requirement for paid sick leave. Some businesses support the idea, while others have concerns, including worries about the cost, about the one-size approach, and how the requirements could practically be applied to temporary or short-term workers. (Read more on the business perspective from the Business Examiner.)

The response has also been mixed from those who support the general idea of paid sick leave to what the proposal looks like at this point. The main concerns we've heard so far from this side is that the proposed ordinance doesn't go far enough, both in terms of number of days and employees covered.

A group calling itself Healthy Tacoma is one of the leading voices asking for stronger requirements. Among their talking points are concerns that the ordinance doesn't require enough covered sick days to workers, and that it would not apply to some classes of workers - namely those with union contracts.

Healthy Tacoma is calling on supporters to speak at Citizens' Forum in favor of a strengthened ordinance. They're asking supporters to share their personal stories to illustrate talking points.

You can expect to hear some commenters framing the ordinance proposed by the Mayor as "the Chamber's ordinance" or "the corporate ordinance," reflecting the influence of corporate and business interests they have seen in what is being discussed so far. You can also expect to hear the word "discrimination" used to describe an exception for unionized workers. In general, you can expect the group to tell the Council (in varying degrees of politeness) that they think Tacoma can do better for its workers.

We'll have to wait and see whether there's any comment opposed to the idea...

It should be a good show.

Filed under: City Council, Legislation, City Government

4 comments

Chris November 17, 2014

3 days? I'm convinced that the City can do more. Any increase would be better than the current requirement of nothing, but there's plenty of precedent that indicates that 3 days would not be an effective policy that would improve public health or financial security of Tacoma's working class.
Rollie November 18, 2014

The administrative costs of this proposal are higher than what you might think. Every business with a license in Tacoma would have to develop a written sick leave policy and for most of us that would require hiring a lawyer. If your business is outside the city but you still are required to have a Tacoma business license, what would your responsibilities be? Written policy, probably. Keeping track of hours worked within the city, most likely, and then converting those hours into sick leave hours. All businesses would have added record keeping responsibilities, something none of use get paid to do. Then there is the cost to the city to enforce this proposal. Where will the funds for that come from? Probably an added tax on businesses. Paid sick leave is not a bad idea, just keep the cost to administer it to zero.
Jesse November 19, 2014

My Dad was a house painter who owned his own business. Ya, not a glamorous job or one that made us rich but we got by. We had to earn all of the year's money during the sunny days of the summer. I started working with him when I was eight years old cleaning brushes after he'd get home from the day so he could go out at night to bid more work. By the time I was in High School we had a contract with a lumber mill to paint the inside and outside every year. The mill would get beat up bad and the owner wanted it refreshed for his staff every summer. It was a hell job. Pitch, saw dust, pressure washing, scraping on tall ladders, machinery making reaching things a challenge and a puzzle... the place earned the name "the mill of doom" with my Dad's employees. The mill job was a big chuck of our summer (and therefore yearly) income. That brings me to my point - if there were mandated sick days for my Dad's business, who would have showed up for work at "the mill of doom?" Painters aren't the most reliable people anyways. How would we get it done over the one weekend a year the mill was shut down to do it? How would our family business survive if we lost that contract because employees called in sick? Is offering sick time the right thing for an employer to do? Yes. Should it be mandated by law? No.
- Jesse November 19, 2014
  
  BTW, we had three days to prep and paint the mill. They were 16-18 hour days. Who's in?