Governor Andrew Cuomo signs paid sick leave for all New Yorkers

NY Post

 State lawmakers voted on bills Wednesday in empty chambers following airtight emergency COVID-19 protocols put in place after two lawmakers recently tested positive for the deadly virus.

The state Senate and Assembly passed a bill that will expand paid sick leave to all public and private sector workers forced into precautionary or mandatory quarantine due to the coronavirus.

The legislation covers a 14 day period.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law — which takes effect immediately — shortly after.

But politicians were given strict guidelines to reduce social interaction.

The state Capitol is closed to the public and staff have been cleaning the building around the clock.

Most of the 63 member state Senate voted from their offices, with the exception of leadership in both conferences.

“Every aspect of our lives are changed, and changed probably for a very, very long time,” Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said on the chamber floor before voting ‘yes’ on the measure, which passed 50 to 6.

Unions against paid sick leave

From Crains:

The city's biggest construction contractors are attacking proposed city legislation that would mandate paid sick leave, fearing it will offer a costly handout to some of the highest-paid unionized workers in the city, including thousands of carpenters, electricians and plumbers.

The sick-leave law's backers say the bill is aimed at low-wage workers who receive little or no time-off benefits. Yet contractors complain that language in the legislation that cites employees "in the building and construction industries" would add additional time onto already-generous paid leave for their employees—enabling them in essence to double-dip. "This is being promoted as a law to help the busboy or the retail worker," said Denise Richardson, managing director of the General Contractors Association. "But it's also helping unions who already have great benefits."

The legislation would force contractors to pay for five more days of time off for their workers, a cost that would average about $2,500 per employee and potentially $250 million annually across the industry. Contractors charge that the added burden would push up costs at a time when the unionized construction industry is already losing market share to far cheaper nonunion competitors, as more developers seek to save money.

"This is only going to add to the burden of using union construction," said Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers' Association. "In the end, it's something that is going to get passed along to the developers."


A spokesman for the Building Construction and Trades Council, which represents the industry's major unions, declined to comment.

Ms. Richardson and other representatives of union contractors said the city's more than 50 construction unions, which together count about 100,000 members, currently receive three weeks of paid time off per year per employee on average—a far cry from the disadvantaged worker the bill is proposing to help.

She doesn't care what you think

From the NY Times:

Ms. Quinn is no naïf. She used a masterstroke to ascend to speaker. While her rival wooed individual members, she charmed the Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn Democratic bosses, and a bushel of votes fell her way. At her swearing-in, the former Village Voice columnist Tom Robbins noted, bosses sat in the front row. Vito J. Lopez of Brooklyn wore a red sweater vest, lest anyone overlook him.

The fates have smiled on Mr. Lopez’s social-service empire, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council; this year the Council sent more than $4 million its way.

Ms. Quinn’s predecessor, Gifford Miller, dueled often with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. That didn’t work out too well; Mr. Miller is now in real estate.

Ms. Quinn drew a lesson: Tread carefully around mogul mayors. When Mr. Bloomberg wanted term limits lifted, she tossed aside previous promises and rammed the measure through without a referendum. When he wanted state approval of an unqualified candidate for schools chief, she raised no peep.

Last year, a Council majority favored mandatory sick days for New Yorkers with less than a week of vacation. The mayor opposed it. Ms. Quinn killed it.

Some suggest that she has gotten lost in the game, that she can no longer recall the questions she once asked as an advocate. That sounds too definitive. Her arc is not done.

She affects nonchalance when described as a mayoral puppet: “You can call me Mini-Me. I don’t really care.”

The rub is that voters might care a lot.

That's just sick

From the NY Post:

The City Council is playing doctor again, prescribing a bitter-pill bill that can only poison New York business -- especially small business.

The council's demands: five days of sick leave for companies with fewer than 20 employees, and nine days for larger firms.

Even part-timers and contractors hit the sick-day jackpot -- all they have to do is work 80 hours to start accruing their days off.

But the council forgot to mention the bill's side effects, catalogued in detail in a study prepared for the New York City Partnership:

*$789 million a year in extra payroll costs -- most hitting the 88 percent of employers who already offer sick leave.

* Sick "days" that can be taken an hour at a time. Imagine that.

* And an average extra cost of $0.48 per hour per employee.

The council knows it can't pass new taxes directly, as much as it would like to -- so it's pushing the Paid Sick Time Act as yet another back-door redistributionist scheme.

But don't be fooled: It's a tax by another name, and it will pour salt in the

wounds of New York's employers, already smarting from the poor economy.

The construction industry -- reeling from 30 percent unemployment -- will be hit hardest of all.

So instead of getting new work, plenty of jobless New Yorkers will get nothing.

Here's a question for you... why do some employees get 5 days of mandated sick time and others get 9? I mean, either you "need" 5 or you "need" 9, right?

This bill is a joke. Imagine if the six-figure freeloaders on the council had to get real jobs?

"Progressives" looking to hurt small businesses

From the Times Ledger:

Two Queens city councilmen took to the streets Tuesday morning to get support from parents over a bill that would mandate small businesses to give their employees paid sick leave.

Councilmen James Sanders (D-Laurelton) and Danny Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) joined members of the Paid Sick Leave Coalition outside schools in the borough to push for the passing of Intro 97-2010. The bill would mandate that businesses with 19 or fewer employees offer at least five paid sick days, while bigger companies would have to give a minimum of nine days.

Sanders, who spoke with parents outside PS 132 on 218th Street in Springfield Gardens, said the bill would be beneficial for New Yorkers not only economically but also in terms of health.

There is no federal or state law that requires companies to provide their employees with paid sick leave, but Washington, D.C., and San Francisco have laws that provide for this work amenity. An October 2009 study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that 1.2 million New Yorkers, roughly 42 percent of the population, do not get paid sick leave.

The bill is currently slated for a vote in the Council after Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) tabled it in the summer.

Dromm also promoted the bill at an event outside PS 69 on 37th Avenue in Corona.

Oh how nice. You guys think that the average baker or florist has 5 extra days pay laying around for each employee? We will be seeing more unemployment if this bill passes.

The good news is it will sink Christine Quinn's mayoral campaign if she doesn't get indicted first.