It’s Time for the Big Apple to Back Paid Sick Leave

by Alex DiBranco · 2010-10-14 17:03:00 UTC
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On the New York City Council, a paid sick leave bill has support from 35 out of 51 council members. That's not just a majority, it's a veto-proof majority. Yet the bill still hasn't passed. Why not? In order for council members to vote in favor of the legislation, there has to be, well, a vote. And Council Speaker Christine Quinn is standing in the way.

As Lauren Kelley writes on Poverty in America, Quinn's stance means that a bill which could help as many as 1.3 million workers doesn't get the chance for a straight up or down vote. Quinn says she just wants to wait and see the results of a Partnership for New York City study. But their studies already seem a little dubious, since they put the number of Big Apple workers without paid sick leave at only 375,000, a quarter of the number put forth by Bureau of Labor Statistics data. What, exactly, is this study going to say to influence her mind? Is this just stalling? And is it really right for one person's questioning to hold up a bill that has such significant majority support?

Groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice New York, NOW (National Organization of Women), and Planned Parenthood have continued to pressure lawmakers to pass the paid sick leave bill, which NARAL NY President Kelli Conlin points out would allow pregnant women to take days off to receive essential prenatal care. Since women also often hold the position of primary caregiver, lacking paid sick days to take care of a child or other family member hits them especially hard, and a single working mother can frequently ill afford to take an unpaid day off.

Paid sick leave isn't just good news for workers who currently lack it: it's also great news for public health. When the swine flu was dominating scary media headlines, we constantly heard the admonition: don't come to work if you're sick. But people come to work sick with various contagious illnesses on a regular basis, because they simply cannot afford not to; people who, say, prepare your food. I'd like my fries disease-free, please.

The primary objection to the bill is that it just costs too much; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is also raising a fuss about "unfunded mandates on businesses." But people's health isn't something to be cheap about. And almost everybody but Bloomberg and Quinn seem to recognize that this popular legislation needs to be passed into law. Tell Quinn to put it up for a vote now.

Photo credit: Lara604

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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