Sick leave ordinance goes before Portland City Council
Commissioner Amanda
Fritz takes the lead on a
workers rights advance
that would impact two
in five Portland workers
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Portland workers will have a guaran-
teed right to sick leave starting next year
— if City Council approves a draft or-
dinance released Jan. 17 by Commis-
sioner Amanda Fritz.
In a lively two-hour question-and-
answer session on Jan. 23, Fritz de-
fended the proposal, and got a foretaste
of the arguments some employers will
make against it.
Under the proposed ordinance, em-
ployees would earn one hour of sick
leave for every 30 hours worked — up
to 40 hours per calendar year. The leave
would be unpaid at employers with five
or fewer employees, and paid at em-
ployers with six or more. Employees
would have the right to use the sick
leave when they or a close family mem-
ber or domestic partner are sick, injured,
or in need of preventive medical care.
The ordinance would go into effect
Jan. 1, 2014 — if the Oregon Legisla-
ture fails to adopt standards that are
equal or better before that time. Port-
land City Council calls on the Oregon
Legislature to pass a statewide sick
leave law, in the 2013 legislative agenda
it approved Jan. 16.
A sick leave mandate would have
many public benefits, the draft resolu-
tion declares. It would prevent the
spread of contagious illness in the
workplace. It would allow parents to
care for sick children, reducing expo-
sure to contagious illness in schools.
And it would reduce the perceived com-
petitive disadvantage that some respon-
sible employers face that currently pro-
vide paid sick time to their workers.
Up to 40 percent of Portland workers
have no paid sick leave currently, ac-
cording to the proposal’s backers.
At a well-attended Jan. 23 info ses-
sion that she hosted, Fritz faced both
critics and advocates. Supporters of the
ordinance included representatives of
Working America and the Oregon
Working Families Party, a contingent
from the hotel workers union UNITE
HERE, and small business people like
union print-shop owner Bill Dickey.
But Fritz also heard from critics who ar-
gued that giving workers the right to
sick leave would send the message that
Portland is unfriendly to business. It
would be a record-keeping hassle, oth-
ers said. Business activists who seemed
ready to oppose a sick leave mandate in
any forum told Fritz that it would be
better to address it in the state Legisla-
ture, or that the City is moving too fast.
“What’s the rush?” asked a business
lobbyist. Fritz’ reply: “What do you
think would be accomplished in six
months that couldn’t be accomplished
in six weeks?” And, she added, it does-
n’t take effect until 2014, so there’d be
plenty of time for City Council to make
common-sense amendments before
then.
Others argued that Fritz’ proposal
would end up hurting workers, because
businesses would cut health insurance
or vacation benefits to pay for the sick
leave mandate.
“Many of the businesses this would
apply to are multinational corporations
that pay minimum wage and have no
benefits of any kind,” Fritz answered.
“What are they going to take away?”
One Clackamas business owner
wanted to know if his truck drivers
would be subject to the law if they
drove through Portland on the way to
make deliveries in Hillsboro, and
seemed to say he’d rather send his driv-
ers the long way to their destination
than give them paid sick leave.
Several speakers in suits declared
that the added cost would be a hardship
that would put some businesses out of
business. Fritz pondered aloud the
mathematics of that: If every worker
used the maximum five sick days a year
— and had to be replaced during their
absence — that would add 1.9 percent
to the payroll cost of businesses with six
or more employees. But the cost would
likely be less, Fritz said: Studies of San
Francisco’s sick leave ordinance (which
has been in effect since 2007) found
that about a quarter of workers used no
sick leave at all in a given year, and me-
dian usage was three days a year, even
though San Francisco workers get five
to nine days a year.
Employers sometimes complain of
absenteeism, but “presenteeism” can be
a problem too, Fritz said: “Americans
come to work whether we’re sick or
not, and that doesn’t work out so well
for the rest.”
Workers have a legal right to sick
leave in 163 countries. But in the United
States, only San Francisco, Washington,
D.C., Seattle, and Connecticut have
such laws thus far.
In its current draft, Portland’s ordi-
nance would be stronger than the Con-
necticut law but weaker than San Fran-
cisco’s. In Connecticut, only hourly
workers in service-sector businesses of
50 or more employees have the right to
paid sick leave. In Seattle, workers ac-
crue up to five, seven or nine days of
paid sick leave per year depending on
employer size, but businesses with
fewer than five employees are exempt.
Washington, D.C.’s, law covers all
workers, with three, five, or seven days
a year of sick leave, depending on the
size of the employer.
Everybody Benefits — the union-
backed coalition that brought the paid
sick leave proposal to Fritz — looks at
San Francisco’s ordinance as the model.
It provides up to five days a year of paid
sick leave at workplaces with under 10
employees, and nine days a year at
larger workplaces. And it applies to all
employers — just as all employers are
subject to minimum wage, workers’
compensation, and unemployment in-
surance laws.
But Fritz, out of concern that paid
sick leave could be a burden for very
small businesses, left the leave unpaid
for employers with fewer than six em-
ployees in her proposed ordinance. The
draft ordinance can still be amended,
however, and Portland Commissioner
Steve Novick told the Labor Press he’s
in favor of a stronger ordinance that
would apply to all employers and grant
more than five days a year. Novick
wouldn’t say whether he would attempt
to amend the proposed ordinance, but
said he would definitely oppose any at-
tempt to make it weaker.
Advocates are calling on supporters
to pack City Hall for City Council’s first
official hearing on the ordinance — 2
p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31. After the hear-
ing, a dozen-member task force led by
Fritz and fellow Commissioner Dan
Saltzman will take four weeks to con-
sider modifications to the proposed or-
dinance. City Council would then vote
on the ordinance in late February.
Fritz is encouraging citizens not to
wait until the council hearing to register
opinions about the proposal, but to take
a look at the ordinance and send in
comments and suggestions now, e-mail-
ing her and the other members of the
Council.
• Mayor Charlie Hales:
mayorhales@portlandoregon.gov
• Commissioner Amanda Fritz:
amanda@portlandoregon.gov
• Commissioner Nick Fish:
Nick@portlandoregon.gov
• Commissioner Steve Novick:
Steve.Novick@portlandoregon.gov
• Commissioner Dan Salzman:
dan@portlandoregon.gov
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