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PAGE 6
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Sick leave ordinance will take
effect in City of Portland Jan. 1
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
On Jan. 1, more than a quarter of a
million Portland workers will gain a
human right — the right to stay home
when they’re sick. That’s when a City
of Portland ordinance passed last
March takes effect, guaranteeing up to
40 hours of sick leave per year for all
employees who work at least 240
hours a year in Portland. It will be paid
sick leave where there are six or more
employees, and unpaid where there are
five or fewer.
Employers are supposed to display
workplace posters explaining how the
sick leave policy will work. Employees
become eligible for sick leave after
they’ve been employed 90 days. They
earn an hour of sick leave for every 30
hours worked, and may use up to 40
hours a year when they or a family
member are sick or have a medical ap-
pointment. Leave can be used to cover
all or part of a scheduled shift.
In November, the City issued ad-
ministrative rules governing how the
mandated sick leave will be imple-
mented. Those details are spelled out
online at www.portlandoregon.gov/
sicktime.
Some of the rules addressed con-
cerns by building trades union leaders
that the ordinance was a poor fit for the
union construction sector, where work-
ers may rotate through multiple em-
ployers over the course of a year, and
where benefits are administered by
union-affiliated trusts rather than by
the employers themselves. Under the
ordinance as amended by City Coun-
cil in November, building trades
unions won’t need to change their ex-
isting benefit structure if they have sys-
tems of paid time off, including vaca-
tion pay accounts, that may also be
used as sick leave pay. The City also
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
clarified that employers can calculate
the 40-hour-a-year sick leave require-
ment using contract year as well as cal-
endar and fiscal year.
Though most union members al-
ready have sick leave, the policy will be
a big improvement for many. Under the
local multi-employer contract with
United Food and Commercial Workers
Local 555, grocery workers haven’t
been allowed to use paid sick leave un-
til the third day of an illness. But the
City ordinance trumps that, and now
Local 555 members working within
Portland city limits will have the right
to paid leave on the first day. Local 555
was part of the coalition that pushed
City Council to pass the ordinance.
The ordinance might have taken ef-
fect sooner, but City Council sponsors
wanted to give the Oregon Legislature
a chance to pass a statewide sick leave
law. Some business critics of Port-
land’s sick leave ordinance said it
would be a hassle to have different sets
of rules for Portland and for the rest of
the state. But a bill to extend sick leave
to all Oregon workers didn’t make it
out of a House Committee in the leg-
islative session that ended in June.
After the session ended, State Sen.
Elizabeth Steiner Hayward (D-Port-
land) and State Rep. Jessica Vega Ped-
erson (D-Portland) led an interim leg-
islative task force to look at the issue.
Backers initially hoped to reintroduce
the bill in the Legislature’s upcoming
one-month session in February 2014,
but concluded that it wouldn’t have
enough support in the Oregon Senate
to pass.
Andrea Paluso of the group Family
Forward Oregon said legislators also
felt the one-month session was too short
to enact a policy that would be contro-
versial with employers. Paluso led the
labor-business coalition that cam-
paigned for the Portland ordinance.
“It’s not a session designed for pub-
lic input,” Paluso said. “Moving forward
in 2015 would allow for a better
process, and also allow Portland to work
through implementation.”
Family Forward Oregon’s political
arm, Mother PAC, will press legislative
office-seekers in 2014 to commit to a
statewide sick leave law.
The City of Portland is engaged a
modest public awareness campaign
about the sick leave ordinance. It sent
out brochures to all 45,000 businesses
that have a city business license, and it’s
conducting free trainings for employ-
ers on how to administer the law.
City officials announced that in the
first few months, it will go easy on em-
ployers who violate the law unknow-
ingly; they’ll have to make employees
whole for violations, but they won’t be
assessed additional civil penalties or
fines for first-time violations.
Enforcement will be driven by em-
ployee complaints, however. Paluso
said she encourages union members to
spread the word to their coworkers,
friends, and relatives: Workers need to
know their rights, and then use sick
leave when they need it.
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DECEMBER 20, 2013