On
May 29, by a vote of 7 to 1, the Duluth City Council passed into an
Earned Safe and Sick Time ordinance. The new law mandates that all
business owners in the city give their workers time off when they are
sick and need time off for other pressing personal matters. The law
was passed after a long and hard fought battle, spearheaded by a
coalition of union and community activists.
Frustrated
by stagnant wages and the rising cost of living, working people
across the country are demanding change. Yet our country’s
“leaders” continue to concern themselves with nothing but the
enrichment of the wealthy elites. Out of desperation, some activists
are turning to local initiatives, like municipal minimum wage laws,
earned safe and sick time mandates, and other similar projects.
However, wherever these local initiatives have been attempted, they
have been met by fierce opposition, including some states passing
laws banning municipalities right to even take up these kind of
issues.
Such
was the case in Duluth. Activists were able to mobilize an
impressive amount of community support in support of the demand for
an earned safe and sick time mandate. This mobilization compelled
the City Council to set up a Task Force to hold public hearings on
the matter, and make a recommendation. At these hearings several
dozen low wage workers testified about having to come in sick, or
loose out on pay – often with heart breaking consequences.
When
the Task Force ended up proposing the city pass an ordinance allowing
workers to earn one hour of paid time off for every 30 hours worked,
the city’s business community had an allergic reaction. Opposition
was in particular spearheaded by a number of prominent businesses
like Grandma’s Restaurants and St. Luke’s Hospital. Initially,
despite the obvious falsehood of it, they claimed that almost all
Duluth businesses already had earned safe and sick time. They later
retreated to the odd claim that it would be too complicated to keep
track of the hours worked. After neither of these flimsy ploys
gained any traction, the business elite resigned themselves to a law
being passed, and instead focused their efforts on pleading with the
City Council to make it as weak as possible.
In
this, unfortunately, the Democratic Party dominated City Council was
all to eager to comply. It is claimed that this is the most
progressive collection of city councilors the city has ever had. But
if that is the case, that says something quite unflattering about
what “progressive” means in the Democratic Party. Despite the
overwhelming popular support for the Task Force’s proposals, the
Council voted again and again to whittle away at them. In doing so
they dragged out the process for several months. They voted to
exempt businesses based on seasonal workers, as well as those with
less than 5 workers. Given Duluth’s tourism based economy,
tragically, this eliminated a large number or workers. However, the
biggest setback was the slashing of the number of hours a worker has
to work before getting one hour of paid sick time. The Council voted
first to water it down from 30 to 1, to 40 to 1. Then, they voted to
cut it to 50 to 1. This proposal was defeated after workers filled
the Council chamber on the day of the vote. However, at the
following Council meeting, a small coterie of well dressed business
owners appeared to ask the Councilors to reconsider. Determined to
seize defeat from the jaws of victory, the Council accepted their
request, and voted by a large majority to re-vote on the 50 to 1
proposed formula, which this time passed. It was in this watered
down form that they finally voted to enact the Earned Safe and Sick
Time ordinance.
The
end result is, nevertheless, a gain for working people in Duluth.
Thousands of workers will now finally have at least limited access to
paid time off to deal with health and family emergencies. But this
could have been, and should have been, a much bigger win. The City
Council’s capitulation is inexcusable. We salute the hundreds of
workers and activists who fought so hard for this, and we will
remember the unfortunate actions of the City Councilors.
>> The article above was written by Adam Ritscher, Vice President of United Steelworkers Local 9460.
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