Feelings mixed about Seattle sick leave ordinance

This might as well be a raise to the minimum wage because the employers who are going to be impacted by this are those people who want to hire at minimum wage.  For businesses with 250 or fewer FTEs are required to provide 52 hours of sick/safe per year for every 2080 hours worked per year.  That is 2.5%.  The cost to the employer for an employee making minimum wage is $0.23/hour ($470.00 per hour). 

 

If you are a small business worried about the added cost, and you pay employees $9.30, you just let them know that to pay for 52 hours of sick/safe time, you're going to have to reduce wages to 9.04/hour.  If you pay employees substantially more, you either a) already provide them with sick time because it is a fairly common benefit, or b) rather than providing employees with a 5% raise, you give them 2.5% and save money v. the 5% raise because you won't pay payroll tax on the sick time as it is not in addition to full-time work.

 

So, unless you're barely hanging on, this is fine.  Real impact- benefits big business, kills off the little guy. 

 

 

I get one week off a year... so far I have tried hard to save that time for a vacation I jsut never get to take... When I worked as a Lifeguard if I as much as coughed I was sent home because my beign alert was important or I could miss something important end of story.. last job I had before this one if I wanted to use a sick day I would have to lose a full day unpaid before I could use my sick pay AND i had to have a note from the doctor... if it takes governemnt to step in and tell buisness's they have to give this to their employees the buisnesses shoudl be ashamed as they care more about how much $$$ they pull in over the health of their employees which is inexcusable...To the buisness owner having to 'work more hours...'   Cry yourself a darn river... your employees deserve to get paid if they are sick and have to stay home.. if you find ones exploiting the system get rid of them easy as that...

 

" Tutta Bella has 170 employees, but the majority work part time. So, using the city's formula of adding up hours worked, it has the equivalent of 90 full timers."

 

And that's the scam many businesses are pulling. They hire part-timers for the very reason that they will not have to offer benefits. Wal-Mart is the most notorious. This law is going to put a crimp in that motive and I'm all for it.

Most reputable employers already have some sort of an earned sick leave policy, and the cost of that policy is already factored into the price of their goods and services. Those employers that don"t have this policy will be quickly figuring out how to factor it's increased costs into their goods and services as well. So no business owner is going to see their bottom line affected. The customers on the other hand might choose to shop elsewhere when they see the price of their favorite items go up. Then it becomes a matter of which location is the most convenient and provides the best service. Quite honestly though, this is another example of government overstepping it's regulatory bounds. The free market does a better job of picking winners and losers. This egalitarian approach does nothing but foster contempt, increase the cost of doing business, and in the end causes businesses to choose other locations in which to locate that don't have such draconian regulations. Oh and you employees that don't like where you work for one reason or another. Remember this. Your employer does not exist because you need a job. Out of your commitment to their needs you get a salary and maybe some benefits if they can afford them. If you are not happy with the compensation package they have to offer feel free to find a better deal else where.   

If the workers who banded together in the early 1900s to form Unions and create tolerable, sustainable jobs in the US could see what's happening now, they'd spin in their graves.

 

It's a race to the bottom and many of you are eager to become literal food for the corporations that eat you for the lowest bid.

"I'm salting money away as best I can.  But basically I' going to have to trim some hours and that means I'm going to have work more than I already do," said small-business owner Beau Hebert."

 

So this "small business owner" would rather someone come in and work sick. It says it in black and white that the "owner" would have to work more. Didn't you start a business so you could work for yourself? Owning a business means working a lot of hours and usually a lot more hours then working for someone else. I see signs posted in breakrooms all the time, "if you are sick stay home" but if a business doesn't really mean it then they shouldn't post the sign. It comes down to guilt and greed. Owners make the sick feel guilty and the workers then are made to work for the greedy boss.

If you can't afford to allow your workers, especially in food service, time off to be sick, then you can't afford to be in business.. you're not very good at it.  The only time I ever had the flu in my adult life, was when a sick worker came into my house to work on the carpet. He had just gotten out of the hospital and had to go right back to work.  I tried to stay away from his coughing, but it was no use. I have never been that sick in my life. He should have been home in bed. 

 

Tired of being served by sick people in restaurants, that have no sick leave. I have family in food service, and when they try to call in sick, they are coerced into coming in if they can't find someone (on their own) to cover.  I don't go back to restaurants that have obviously sick people working, because it's clear they don't care about employees or customers. 

 

Sorry to have to make these laws, but until employers start treating people decently, the govt has to step in. Unless you like catching the flu when you go for a taco.   And frankly, all this whining by the angry-old-men crowd about "nanny state." Pfft. they dont' seem to mind the 40 hour work week, holidays off, etc., that came from these very laws.  Or maybe we can just be like SOmalia and have no laws.. and your 10 year old will be forced to work in a factory.  

The state should have stepped forward on a nore limited plan to level the business environment throughout the state. Most places that have had sick leave benefits for years find that is abused by many in tthe younger generation.

Simplest solution for small businesses in Seattle is to just leave Seattle.

You give your time, your body and your health, in some cases, to these businesses to help make them succeed to PAD THEIR pockets, but when it comes time to needing a little bit of downtime to recoup or to heal, then they want YOU to twist in the wind?When people are crying "socialism" go ahead and throw "corporate greed and insensitivity" in there as well.