Calling in sick: Analyzing the legal, political and social feasibility of paid sick leave ordinances

Staying home from work when sick prevents the spread of communicable illness, like flu, and promotes healthy communities. However, because of financial insecurities, many employees in the U.S. cannot stay home when sick. Instead, these employees go to work while contagious and risk the health of their co-workers, customers, and the public. Some cities have successfully enacted paid sick leave ordinances and require employers to provide employees with accrued paid sick days. Paid sick leave ordinances allow sick employees to stay home, prevents the employee's loss of income or job, and protects community health. Research methods included a review of statutory and regulatory documents, including paid sick leave ordinances, relevant case law, and reports assessing the impact of paid sick leave ordinances. In this session we will first examine the public health rationale behind paid sick leave ordinances and the legal authority local governments use to enact them. Next, we will survey the enactment of and challenges to paid sick leave ordinances in three municipalities (San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee), and analyze the legal, political and social bases for an ordinance's success and failure. Finally, we will examine the specter of federal preemption of local paid sick leave ordinances.