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Ohioans for Healthy Families avoids a headache for Ohio
Published on Friday, Sep 05, 2008
The coalition, led by the Service Employees International Union, pushed for more than a year a proposal that would guarantee seven paid sick days annually to workers in companies with 25 or more employees. Proponents argued that workers shouldn't lose pay when they have to take time off to care for themselves or an ailing family member.
The impulse was right to seek reasonable protections for the income of workers, particularly employees of small businesses, faced with illness. Unfortunately, the proposed legislation was so poorly formulated it strayed well beyond the reasonable. For instance, under the proposal, workers could take sick leave in hourly increments and for up to three days without obtaining medical certification.
The proposal lacked clarity on other provisions, including whether workers could carry over unused sick days to the next year or be compensated for those days when they left an employer.
Proponents could contend that for an Ohio trying to attract and retain workers, a worker-friendly mandate such as Issue 4 has its appeal. True, but the far more compelling argument was on the opponents' side. For both small and large employers, the benefit promised increased costs, scheduling disruptions, loss of flexibility in negotiating sick leave and the hassle of tracking employee sick leave by the hour.
Not surprisingly, the proposal drew broad, bipartisan and uniform opposition, putting business groups, legislative leaders and Gov. Ted Strickland's administration on the same page. Strickland tried and failed last month to negotiate a compromise proposal with the coalition. It is a credit to him and leaders of the coalition that they continued the discussion, and arrived at the necessary conclusion. Ohio hardly needed an expensive and bitter campaign over an issue harmful to the retooling of its economy.
Get the full article here.
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