Business makes final play on paid sick leave

[update: the bill was voted out of committee today]

The hospitality industry is lobbying to amend a bill requiring many Philadelphia employers to provide workers with paid-sick leave as the latest version of the measure makes its way to being approved by City Council.

Mayor Michael Michael Nutter vetoed similar bills in 2011 and 2013 and its sponsor, Councilman Bill Greenlee, did not have the 12 votes needed to override it.

This year, the bill seems headed for a probable Nutter signature. Today at 11:30 a.m., the Council Public Health and Human Services Committee will hold a hearing and vote on the bill, and a vote by the whole of Council is expected as soon as next Thursday. But restaurant and bar owners say that the bill still does not give employers sufficient power.

"The hospitality industry is not 9-to-5, so there are certain things that we need to operate" and carry out paid-sick leave, says Melissa Bova, Director of Government Affairs at the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association. "The bill is so vague. So how do you enforce it and how do you, as a business, continue to operate?"

PLRA has opposed paid-sick leave in the past. It is now seeking to amend the bill — primarily, it says, to manage staffing of busy restaurants and bars. Their proposal includes requiring a request be made in writing 10 days in advance if an absence is foreseeable, and to comply with the business' regular notification policies if the leave is unforeseeable. They also want employers who suspect worker abuse of paid-sick leave to have the power to require documentation of an illness from a healthcare provider, and to require that sick-leave be used in four-hour increments.

The currently proposed legislation requires workers generally to notify employers in advance when possible, allows employers to require documentation, but only after more than two consecutive days are taken, and allows workers to take sick leave in hourly increments.

Greenlee opposes any significant amendments and wants the bill passed mostly as it is currently written.

"I don't think they're necessary," says Greenlee. "It's just too open-ended. I think we have language in there that people have to give reasonable advance notice if they have an appointment."

Bova says that PLRA met with most members of the Council Public Health and Human Services Committee, and that most voiced support for their amendments. That changed, she said, after Greenlee indicated he would oppose them.

"We're being told that it will not be included," says Bova. "Which is frustrating."

Indeed, the service industry is a major target of the bill because it so often fails to provide workers with paid sick leave.

Last year, a task force convened by Mayor Nutter estimated that 200,000 Philadelphia workers, or more than one-third of the workforce, lack access to paid sick leave. The problem was concentrated "among low-wage, part-time and service-industry workers."

Lacking access to paid sick leave can have inflict major health and economic costs on workers. According to the task force, the average family without paid sick leave loses the equivalent of one entire month's grocery budget for 3.5 days of lost pay. Workers denied paid sick leave, restaurant workers very much included, also pose public health risks.

One Council source says that Councilman Ed Neilson, a former political director of the electricians' union, IBEW Local 98, might be willing to introduce the restaurant industry amendments. Neilson's office did not respond to a request for comment. If Neilson does introduce unpopular amendments, it would run counter to the City Council near-tradition of not proposing legislation that will fail to pass unanimously. It would also seem to run counter to the labor movement sentiment on the bill.

Greenlee, however, will support another amendment — stemming from a proposal that he and other Council sources say that Comcast has been circulating. The amendment would allow an employer to maintain its "existing policies or provide additional leave if the employer's existing policy satisfies or exceeds the bill's accrual requirements and meets all other conditions set forth."

The alleged involvement of Comcast raised a big question: What, then, was Comcast after? The Law Department, says Greenlee, has issued guidance stating the amendment would not exempt employers from the law's provisions.

"I was suspicious of why they were asking for language that seemed to be in there already. But after talking to a number of people, it didn't seem to hurt anything," says Greenlee. So why did Comcast bother? "It might just be that they feel that they have to get something."

Comcast spokesperson John Demming says that "the language...was circulated by the Mayor's Task force, not Comcast." He didn't elaborate.

Mayor Nutter seems to want a change, too. But he probably won't get it. Namely, the bill as currently drafted applies to any business employing at least 10 workers. Nutter has reportedly advocated restricting the requirement to companies with 15 employees or more. Greenlee says that he opposes exempting more businesses because he has already watered down the bill in an effort to compromise. Past versions of the bill exempted businesses with five or fewer employees.

"I don't want to go any higher because every time you go up in increments of five you probably take away sick leave from a few thousand workers," he says.