Covered at Reason 24/7: Portland Mandates Paid Sick Leave; Philadelphia May Follow

City officials know best! Portland, Ore., employers will be required to provide employees with five paid sick days per year.

The Associated Press reports:

The City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to make Portland the fourth U.S. city to mandate that businesses offer sick leave, requiring employers to give workers up to five days of sick leave each year.

The number of cities could soon expand to five. Philadelphia City Council members are expected to vote on a similar measure on Thursday.

The other cities that require sick time are Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

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Comments

[Way Of The Crane]

So higher prices in Portland soon, huh?

[A Serious Man]

Or businesses will soon be moving to places outside the city limits.

[RPR2]

or paid vacation time gets shorter. or pay gets cut. or raises don't happen. or employees that use the sick days are evaluated.

[Hugh Akston]

Fewer employees, more contractors.

[Cdr Lytton]

Or businesses will soon be moving to places outside the city limits.

They'd be wise to hold onto the moving truck for a little longer. Legislation is pending to extend sick leave statewide.

[Some call me Tim?]

I live in Philadelphia, and work in a restaurant. Obviously, I don't get sick leave.

Been in this business for 10 years and never worked in a restaurant that offered paid time off. I know such places exist, but they are always unionized and thus it is difficult to gain employment there and difficult to gain seniority (which is important in fine dining).

Obviously restaurants cannot move out of the city, and they probably can't really make much of a move in wages (they certainly cannot lower my "wage"), so what I think this will ultimately mean is that the increase in cost will be passed along to the consumers.

Basically the city council of Philadelphia will just make it more expensive to dine within the city limits.

[Smack MacDougal]

Costs have nothing to do with prices. Winning bidders of demand set prices.

costs have to do with profitability and thus existence.

[albo]

It's really easy for politicians to make other people pay for things--their constituents love them for it, and who cares what the businesses think. They're just evil corporate devils anyway.

[Episiarch]

Yes, let's kick businesses in the nuts. It's the perfect time for it, right? Any time is the best time, for politicians!

[sarcasmic]

All employers are doing is stealing profits off the backs of their employees. This just forces them to give back some of what they stole. I mean, show me an employer and I'll show you someone who hasn't paid his fair share. How do I know he hasn't paid his fair share? He's rich. How can someone be rich and pay their fair share? They can't.

[Killazontherun]

Ever notice how politicians are always doing such nice things like this for their constituents, whereas business owners only do things for themselves?

[wareagle]

funny thing is, a good many folks on local boards like city councils and county commissions are businesspeople themselves, or dependent on businesspeople for campaign cash. Makes you wonder what is trading hands backstage in exchange for this.

[sarcasmic]

If you already give your employees sick time, and your competitor does not, you've just legislated away one of your competitor's advantages over you.

[wareagle]

and what do you get in return? I may trust local pols even less than national ones.

[Hugh Akston]

Whatever they were going to pass to put you out of business but now they have bigger fish to fry.

[Peter Bleswick]

"All employers are doing is stealing profits off the backs of their employees. This just forces them to give back some of what they stole. I mean, show me an employer and I'll show you someone who hasn't paid his fair share. How do I know he hasn't paid his fair share? He's rich. How can someone be rich and pay their fair share? They can't."

A million uptwinkles! /dailykos

[Enough About Palin]

DRTFA, but are these mandates being challenged in court? Can the city that forces employers to pay sick leave also force employers to provide their employees with affordable housing and jet packs?

[Kaptious Kristen]

Fucking Bernie Sanders filed for a Constitutional Amendment that will override the First Amendment (to overturn Citizens United)

[LTC(ret) John]

Dung to attract the flies that are leftists/statists/slavers.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Sometimes I'm ashamed to be from VT. But Bernie was only Mayor of Burlington when I lived there. We won't talk about the sewage problem in Lake Champlain during his tenure....

[$park?]

My dad's cousin lives in VT and she loves her some Bernie.

[Hugh Akston]

All Vermonters eat is cheese and maple syrup. How bad could the sewage really be?

[SugarFree]

Kale. They all eat kale. Lots of kale. A curly ocean of kale shits.

[Hugh Akston]

I never realized Kristen was that disgusting.

[Tim]

He'd burn the forest to get one leaf.

[BakedPenguin]

Bernie Sanders filed for a Constitutional Amendment ...(to overturn Citizens United)

If this ever passes, it would be hilarious to see the RNC sue NBC, ABC CNN, etc., for "in-kind" contributions to the Democratic Party.

[Juice]

At least he realizes that it takes an amendment.

[CampingInYourPark]

Bwahahaha...for now

[VG Zaytsev]

I'm a merchant.

Can I force my customers to pay for non service and no product when I'm too sick to open the store?

[Bardas Phocas]

Why don't you throw a few bucks to the city council critters and they can mandate all tax serfs buy your products - OR they get hit with a penaltax.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

Sick?
How dare you call in sick. If you're not dead, show up.

[sarcasmic]

If you can pick up the phone, you can work.

[LTC(ret) John]

If you can lie there and think about work, you can work!

[db]

My boss encourages us to stay home if we're sick to prevent infecting our co workers. I told him I'll start wearing a condom.

[Calvin Coolidge]

Eh, it's the DMV. We can pay you to sit around at home doing nothing, or to come in to work and do nothing. Nobody will even notice, either way. I'm sure it is like this for every other employer as well.

[Marshall Gill]

Here in OK we are constantly bombarded with advertisements telling us how much it "costs" us when smokers miss work. How can they allow people to miss work and not pay the corresponding taxes? That costs the rest of us in potential taxes not collected!

[DesigNate]

Wow, that really makes sense when you think about it.

/anonbot

[db]

Speaking of Philly, did we ever figure out what their claimed justification was for demanding tax payments from Yuengling, which is located in Not Philadelphia?

[Some call me Tim?]

I think it had something to do with a flood from 100 years ago.

[Agammamon]

Because fuck you, that's why?

[Agammamon]

Oh, and social contract ... we're all inthis together ... blahblahblah.

[Calvin Coolidge]

I think the have cut the rate slightly since then, but a few years ago it was 4.96% of your income if you lived in Philly, no matter where you worked, and 4.04% of your income if you didn't live there but worked there.

I ended up moving to the suburbs and working for a company with an office 100 yards outside the city limits. So now they get 0%. And I have paid sick days, because I'm not a ditch digger and I do a job where you get paid sick days because your employer wants to keep their skilled workers.

[Sevo]

"I ended up moving to the suburbs and working for a company with an office 100 yards outside the city limits"

I can see the business park on 1-5 right now. Big sign: We're Not in Portland!

[Some call me Tim?]

Current rate is 3.928% if you live in the city, and 3.4985% if you work in the city but do not live in it.

[Acosmist]

Yeah, Philly took more of my money than the county I lived in and the Commonwealth of PA combined when I was forced to work there. The decent rate of pay the company was offering wasn't so decent when taking that into account. Can only imagine places are going to move if they can, and just bleed employees if they can't.

Philly is applying leeches to its ailing economy. Let's get some popcorn and watch!

[Some call me Tim?]

"Paid sick time" or "paid sick days" means time that is compensated at the same hourly rate and with the same benefits, including health care benefits, as the employee normally earns during hours worked and is provided by an employer to an employee for the purposes described in ? 9-3305 of this Chapter.

Well since I receive 90%+ of my compensation in tips, this really wont affect me much at all.

Good luck effectively enforcing the anti-retalitory parts of the law.

[DesigNate]

You're a waiter which means you're poor (in their eyes), which means they don't give a fuck about you.

[Some call me Tim?]

Well, they definitely don't give a fuck about me.

Though, I'm the last person that would be used as a poster child since I'm in the top 5% of the profession, a consequence of working in fine dining.

[Calvin Coolidge]

They will be easy to enforce, as soon as the anti-reality parts of the law kick in!

[The Great & Marvelous meh]

Being someone that lives in a city that is pretty much a suburb to Portland, I think it's going to be interesting to watch what independent shops fold up and become mobile vendors. All this does is make the small business owner look for ways to not have to hire employees. I'm betting there will be a boost of users at Odesk.com, virtual assistant will be routinely searched for on craigslist, or working with a network micro-enterprises to fulfill customer orders for products and services will be the new normal. So say good by to the era of employees, and say hello to where everyone incorporates themselves and free lances their productive capabilities.