By Morgan Montalvo
WOAI News
San Antonio’s City Council Chamber was full to near-overflowing Wednesday evening with supporters and opponents of a proposed paid sick leave ordinance, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Attendees on both sides of the issue jockeyed for seats, an open space to stand, or a chance at the public address lectern in front of council members as a public hearing on the measure got underway.
The proposal calls for one hour of paid sick for each 30 hours worked by an employee of most local businesses, with annual caps set at 64 or 38 hours based on a firm’s number of workers.
Cuauhtemoc Toran with the activist group Move Texas tells WOAI News he supports the idea.
“Right now, people have to sacrifice their day’s earnings in order to attend to themselves over something they cannot control,” he says.
Fellow paid sick leave supporter Michelle Tremillo with the Texas Organizing Project says about 40 communities in the U.S. mandate paid sick leave.
“The studies from those jurisdictions show that there’s a net positive effect of enacting earned-paid sick on both businesses and for working families,” says Tremillo.
John Agather, president-elect of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, calls the proposal a “one size fits all” approach to balancing workers’ quality of life with employers’ needs to keep open their doors. He says the Hispanic Chamber opposes the plan because small and medium-sized businesses, many of them restaurants with bare-bones staff, operate on tight profit margins and cannot afford protected worker absenteeism because of elective time off.
“This could be a real burden financially for them,” Agather says. “We’re not opposed to paid sick leave, but this isn’t the way to go about it.”
Douglas Carlberg, CEO of local defense contractor M2 Global, says his company offers paid leave and a generous benefits package, but compliance with additional sick leave rules will make him re-think keeping local his operation, which employs a number of disabled veterans.
“It’s going to have a major impact on me,” he tells WOAI News. “I’ve got two choices: I can either reduce the benefits – and we offer sick leave today – I can reduce benefits or I can move out of San Antonio. And I may do both if this passes."
Carlberg says an unintended consequence will be fewer local paid student internships because, under the proposal's guidelines, businesses that host interns will have to grant students the same time-off privileges as regular employees.
It will be up to City Council whether to put the issue up for a public vote in November.