Milwaukee's Private Employers and Paid Sick Days

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Petitions signed by an estimated 40,000 people will be delivered to Milwaukee City Hall today in a bid to get the Common Council to require that all employers in the city provide paid sick days to employees.

A coalition of labor, educational and community organizations calling itself Paid Sick Days Milwaukee, led by 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women, is behind the effort.

The coalition has reached into state statutes and a seldom-used law called “direct legislation,” which allows citizens to bring proposed legislation before a city or village governing body.

...If it passes, the measure is binding on the council, said City Attorney Grant Langley, noting that direct legislation is not used very often.

...The proposed ordinance would not cover public employees, but most already have paid sick time, she said. It would apply to all private employers in the city of Milwaukee, and the coverage would extend to temporary workers.

Small businesses with 10 or fewer employees would be allowed to provide fewer paid sick days per year than larger employers.

According to the proposal, a worker would earn a minimum of one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, which means full-time employees for a large business would earn 72 hours a year.

Businesses with l0 or fewer employees would be required to provide 40 hours of paid sick leave a year.

The days could be taken for illness, medical care for the worker, a child, parent or other person related to the worker “by blood or affinity.”

Unused sick days could be rolled over to the next year, Stear said, but a person could not use more than 9 days in one year.

...Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, said he’s not unsympathetic to the issue. But, he said, “Milwaukee needs one more thing to make it uncompetitive like it needs a hole in the head.”

Employers in Milwaukee “get the drill and are interested in creating flexible benefits packages for employees, because if they don’t, they aren’t going to compete well,” he said.

“The last thing they need is a government mandate telling them how to deal with their employees.”

This is just what Milwaukee needs -- more regulation, more meddling in private business, a more hostile climate.

As Sheehy notes, good benefits packages for employees are important in helping businesses remain competitive. Good benefits help employers attract the best employees; and satisfied, loyal employees benefit the employer in the long run.

But a government mandate?

Has the petition to get the Common Council to require all employers in the city to provide their employees with Paid Summerfest Days began circulating yet?