Aldermen try again to require employers to offer paid sick days

Aldermen, workers and advocates from the Earned Sick Time Chicago Coalition introduced an ordinance on Wednesday that would require some employers to offer paid sick days.

The ordinance, sponsored by several aldermen, including Toni Foulkes (15th), Proco Joe Moreno (1st), Joe Moore (49th) and Scott Waguespack (32nd), would affect almost half of Chicago’s private-sector workers.

Along with Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th), Anne Ladky, co-chair of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Working Families Task Force, called the proposition “a basic standard for a basic benefit” at a City Hall press conference.

The ordinance was introduced once before, and it went nowhere. But it did lead to a nonbinding ballot referendum in the 2015 election, which found that 82 percent of Chicagoans support paid sick days.

Pawar acknowledged that although some companies and groups oppose the ordinance — they are, he said, “people who are against everything” — the proposal is intended to set “just a baseline of decency.”

Despite opposition from business groups that have flagged the city for piling on, Emanuel embraced the concept of paid sick leave. But he was careful not to sign on to any specific proposal.

“I believe that people should not have to have a false choice between being a good employee and a good parent. And it shouldn’t be at the discretion just of an employer that you happen to work at a good place,” the mayor said Wednesday.

“The policy of having paid sick days — five of ’em — as a general rule I support. [But] I happen to think we have to be smart about it. . . . I don’t want the city to try to be an island unto itself. But I have done certain things in my whole life so people don’t have to be forced into false choices . . . or the wrong choices.”

Emanuel reminded reporters that, shortly after he took office, he implemented a policy of granting city employees paid maternity leave. Before that edict, pregnant moms were force to store up sick days in advance of giving birth.

The ordinance proposes that workers could earn up to five sick days in one year, at the rate of one hour earned for every 40 hours worked.

The proposal recommends that workers be allowed to carry up to two and a half unused sick days to the following year.

Other cities, such as Seattle, San Francisco and New York, already have similar ordinances on the books.

Foulkes spoke about her own challenges with taking time off as a cake decorator at Jewel. She stayed home sick with the chicken pox for 18 days — and was paid for only two of those.

Moreno called the proposition a no-brainer and a human right. He recommended that establishments that oppose it should place a sign in their windows: “Caution — your food may be prepared by someone that’s sick because we don’t support paid sick days.”

Tanya Triche, vice president and general counsel of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, a group that opposes the ordinance, said the problem isn’t giving employees this benefit but forcing companies to pay the price.

Triche said this ordinance is just another one of many costly regulations Chicago business owners have been mandated to pay for, and she and others are left wondering: “Why is it that the city of Chicago always goes to the employer to pay for the mandate?”

One way to combat this issue is to tackle it at the national level, Triche said. This way, companies in areas where paid sick leave is mandatory — and businesses pick up the costs — will not be competing with those who are not forced to pay the cost of such regulations.

Contributing: Fran Spielman