Aldermen try again to require employers to offer paid sick days

Aldermen, workers and advocates from the Earned Sick Time Chicago Coalition introduced an ordinance on Wednesday that would require some employers to offer paid sick days.

The ordinance, sponsored by several aldermen, including Toni Foulkes (15th), Proco Joe Moreno (1st), Joe Moore (49th) and Scott Waguespack (32nd), would affect almost half of Chicago's private-sector workers.

Along with Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th), Anne Ladky, co-chair of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Working Families Task Force, called the proposition "a basic standard for a basic benefit" at a City Hall press conference.

The ordinance was introduced once before, and it went nowhere. But it did lead to a nonbinding ballot referendum in the 2015 election, which found that 82 percent of Chicagoans support paid sick days.

Pawar acknowledged that although some companies and groups oppose the ordinance - they are, he said, "people who are against everything" - the proposal is intended to set "just a baseline of decency."

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