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Statement

STATEMENT OF Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director, CEO and Co-Founder, Momsrising, on Speaker Christine Quinn’s Refusal to Allow a Vote on Earned Sick Days Bill

October 4, 2012
Paid Sick Days

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

“There’s a bill sitting in the New York City Council with 37 sponsors that would allow more than a million New Yorkers to earn paid time off to use when they are sick or to take care of a sick child, spouse or parent. We know we have the votes to move that bill and there is overwhelming public support for it but Speaker Quinn is holding it hostage.
 
“Earned sick days make good public health policy. When people go to work sick or send their children to school sick, they spread germs and other people get sick. What’s more, people who don’t have earned sick days are more likely to be in jobs where they are in regular contact with other people, with children, with older adults or with food. It’s not hard to do the math there. Unless you’re Christine Quinn.
 
“No worker should ever, ever have to choose between losing a day’s pay and staying home to recuperate from illness or to care for a sick child. A majority of the New York City Council members recognize this and are prepared to vote to support earned sick days. Speaker Quinn’s refusal to allow a vote on this bill is unfair to the more than a million New York workers, many of them moms, who have to face the impossible choice between their families’ health and their jobs.”
 

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MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.