Statement
STATEMENT OF KRISTIN ROWE-FINKBEINER, Executive Director and CEO, MomsRising, On the Passage of the Paid Sick Days Ordinance in Tacoma, Washington
January 28, 2015
Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996
Tacoma Makes National History with Sick Days Ordinance
Last night, Tacoma made history as the very first jurisdiction in the nation to pass a paid sick days ordinance in 2015. The ordinance passed by a vote of 8-1. The final ordinance improved on Mayor Strickland's original paid sick days proposal by covering all workers, including those in labor unions. The 40,000 members of MomsRising in Washington state and the over one million members nationwide who have been working hard to advance paid sick days, mark this moment as a step forward.
However, the ordinance falls short by limiting workers to earning only three days of sick leave per year. That's not enough to fully protect public health. Many workers, and especially parents, will still be forced to choose between a paycheck and getting healthy. Tacoma's moms, dads, workers, business owners, faith leaders and others deserve credit for pushing the Council to consider this issue. We commend the leadership of Council members Ryan Mello, Anders Ibsen, and Victoria Woodards, who supported amendments to ensure every worker could earn up to five days of leave per year. And MomsRising is committed to continuing to fight to advance paid sick days in Tacoma and across the nation, including in the U.S. Congress.
On the issue of paid sick days states and cities are light years ahead of the U.S. Congress. The preponderance of research shows that advancing paid sick days boosts our families and our economy. Yet the astonishing fact is that in this day and age, eight in ten low-wage workers can’t earn a single paid sick day.
This fact is even more appalling given that access to paid sick days is proven to save funds and is a basic workplace protection in most other nations, as well as increasingly in cities and states across our nation.
In fact, our national economy takes a beating when workers go to work sick; costing us roughly $160 billion a year in lost productivity. That’s because the U.S. Congress doesn’t realize what the Tacoma City Council, the Massachusetts and Connecticut state legislatures, and several other city councils around the country already know: That paid sick days are a win-win. That paid sick days policies improve public health, family economic security, and the economy. They keep people in the jobs they desperately need and save employers money because offering earned paid sick days is much less expensive than the cost of replacing workers.
So, today, we thank the Tacoma City Council for taking an important step in bringing local public policies up-to-date with what women, working families, Tacoma and our economy need. We would urge the Mayor and the Council to consider extending the number of days from three to at least seven, which would improve this policy by giving workers adequate time to recover from illness.
And we will continue to push for paid sick days policies that help our entire nation.