Recordpub.com - Paid sick days issue pulled from ballot

By Marc Kovac

Record-Courier Capital Bureau

COLUMBUS -- In a surprise move, backers of a state law requiring employers to provide paid sick time off to workers agreed to remove the issue from the November ballot.

Proponents, buoyed by a potential federal sick day leave law supported by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, told reporters Thursday they wanted to void "a shrill and vitriolic ballot campaign marred by misinformation and disinformation."

"There's no question that we were about to get into a very divisive and unproductive debate and, for lack of a better word, struggle with each other -- folks that support the coalition and the business community," said Becky Williams, president of the Service Employees International Union district that covers Ohio. "And, ultimately, there was a decision that that fight just didn't make sense for Ohio workers. That right now, when we have a great chance of being successful at a federal initiative that would affect all American workers ... it seemed to me to be a better way to build a benefit for workers than taking them through a brutal struggle that I think we would have went through here in Ohio."

The announcement came one day before the deadline for proponents to remove the issue from the statewide ballot. Kevin Kidder, a spokesman for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, confirmed the office had received the letter.

The decision was supported by Gov. Ted Strickland, who had voiced his opposition to the ballot issue as written.

"We're trying to deal with an economy that is struggling, and we're trying to do everything we can to make Ohio an attractive place for business investment, job growth and new industries," he said. "And I believe, and I continue to believe, that if Ohio were to become the single state that placed this particular requirement upon the business community, especially under the kinds of rules and regulations that were associated with this initiative, that it would be harmful to our economy."

The move ended the Ohio Paid Sick Days campaign's initiated legislation, called the Ohio Healthy Families Act, that would have required businesses with 25 or more workers to allow full-time employees to earn seven paid sick days per year.

According to proponents, 2.2 million Ohio workers are not able to take paid sick days, exposing their co-workers and the public to potential illnesses. Some 3.5 million can't take paid days to care for family members who are sick or who need physician care.

But opponents called the measure an "anti-job creation proposal" that would burden employers with additional regulations and mandates, increase their costs and restrict companies' flexibility in their employee benefit plans.

In polling in recent months, a majority of Ohioans appeared to support paid sick days, and opponents, including Strickland, acknowledged that the issue likely would have passed in November.

The governor's office actively sought a compromise between the issue proponents and opponents, with hopes of keeping it off the ballot. But those efforts failed, and late last month the administration announced discussions involving the business community and the union had ended without a viable solution all sides could live with.

Williams said she and other proponents remained steadfast in their support of paid sick days and their belief that providing the benefit to workers would have a positive impact on the business community and the economy.

The union has already spent an estimated $1.7 million in its efforts to see the ballot issue passed. Members, instead, will shift their attention to federal legislation and abandon their Ohio ones, for the present.

"What our members understand is we've elevated the issue, that people now are talking about the right of workers to have paid sick days, and that really does matter. we have now an issue that we can move, that has some state attention, but that we can move on a national level," Williams said.

Obama and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, are sponsors of the federal legislation, which would require businesses nationwide to provide paid sick time off to their employees. (The Ohio legislation was based on the federal version.)

"National paid sick days policy would put every state on a level playing field...," Brown told reporters Thursday. "This will be part of a Democratic agenda starting in January aimed at helping working families..."

He added, citing an analysis of the federal legislation, "If workers had just seven paid sick days per year, our economy would save $8 billion each year, due to reduced turnover, to higher productivity, to reduce spreading of illnesses in the workplace."

For his part, Strickland said he exerted no political or executive pressure on the union to drop the ballot issue, other than to voice his support for a federal paid sick day law.

"This is something that we agreed upon in a very mutually respectful manner," he said.

Strickland added that discussions concerning a union-supported move that would increase prevailing wage requirements on state-supported construction projects, also played no role.

"None, zero, no connection whatsoever," he told reporters. "What we're trying to do with prevailing wage is to apply the law as we believe the law is written. And it has absolutely no connection whatsoever to this issue."