From the Dispatch

Paid Sick Days Legislation has Overwhelming Support, Polling Shows

Tim Judson — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:56:56 +0000

86% of the public favors legislation that would mandate seven paid sick days per year for all employers, according to study sponsored by the Public Welfare Fund in collaboration with the National Partnership of Women and Families (full results here). Even when the public is asked about mandating nine paid sick days per year, 71% still support the proposed legislation. The study found that paid sick days legislation enjoys deep public support across all demographics and political leanings, including large majorities of Republicans as well as Democrats.

In response to the statement, “Paid sick days is a basic worker right, just like being paid a decent wage,” not only did 75% of public agree, but on a scale of 1 to 10 signifying agreement, 43% rated the statement a 10 and 64% agreed strongly (rating it an 8 or higher).

The issue strongly colors how voters view elected officials, with 47% saying they would favor a candidate who supports paid sick days, while only 14% said they would not support that candidate.

Job Losses Suffered Due to Need for Sick Days Drives Opinion: Driving the poll numbers is the reality that too many workers have lost a job or been threatened with losing a job because they needed to take a sick day for themselves or to care for a family member. One out of every six people (16%) has lost their job for missing work due to illness, and one in four (25%) has been told they would either lose their job or be suspended or punished. And while 64% of workers are “eligible” for paid sick leave, the real picture is much more dire:

Less than half of the workforce (47%) can take a paid sick day to care for a sick child or family member, meaning most parents either have to risk their job to care for their children or send them to school sick.
Most workers (58%) whose employers offer only generic “paid time off” get a total of 10 days or less per year to cover vacation, personal, and sick leave.
55% of people without paid sick days have had to go to work sick, compared to 37% of workers who can take a paid sick day.
24% of those without paid sick days have had to send a sick child to school because they couldn't get the day off, while only 14% of those with paid sick days had to do so.

Public Does Not Believe Paid Sick Days Hurts Business Bottom Line: While paid sick days legislation has faced vigorous opposition from some in the business community, in most of the 23 states where it has been introduced, the public overwhelmingly rejects the typical arguments that paid sick days will harm jobs or individual businesses. The research indicates that their messages are not persuasive to voters:

54% of those polled find "very convincing" the argument that "Requiring paid sick days doesn't hurt employers' bottom line" because paid sick days increases worker productivity.
By contrast, only 26% of those polled found the opposition argument "very convincing" that "Given the economic downturn we are now in, businesses can't afford to add new benefits like paid sick leave."

In fact, while almost all of the arguments in favor of paid sick days were viewed by majorities as "very convincing," no arguments by opponents were considered "very convincing" and only four of seven opposing arguments were seen as even "somewhat convincing" by more than half of those surveyed.

Reinforcing the polling numbers is the reality that where paid sick days have actually been implemented, such as the City of San Francisco, even original opponents of the policy, are now applauding its success. In a recent Business Week article, the such as the Golden Gate Restaurant Association stated that paid sick days has been “the best public policy for the least cost" since the policy was enacted.

Resources
Public Welfare Fund - Paid Sick Days: Attitudes and Experiences

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Workplace Standards for Domestic Workers: Breakthrough NY Legislation Approved

Tim Judson — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:59:00 +0000

On June 1, the New York Senate put the state in position to be first in the nation to enact a Domestic Workers' Rights law (S2311) by a vote of 33-28. The New York Assembly led the way in June 2009 when it passed its own version of the bill (A1470). This groundbreaking legislation will extend core labor rights, from fair labor standards to paid sick days, to creating a framework for collective bargaining, to domestic workers. This will include those employed to work in a private home to perform housekeeping and/or to care for children, the infirm, or the elderly.

The two versions of the law must be reconciled, as the Senate bill goes much farther in extending basic labor standards, but Gov. David Paterson pledged last year that he would sign the bill. A campaign to pass similar domestic workers legislation is also active in California.

Justice Seventy Years Delayed: Seventy years after passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), domestic workers like agricultural workers are still denied many basic labor protections under federal law such as overtime pay and the ability to join a union. That omission was an extension of the country's entrenched history of discrimination, particularly in the pre-Civil Rights Act era: both farm and domestic workforces had long been dominated by African Americans.

In the 21^st Century, domestic workers remain one of the most exploited segments of the workforce, being comprised almost entirely of immigrant women: according to Domestic Workers' United, 99% are foreign born, 95% are people of color, and 93% are women. Until 1974, when the FLSA was amended to extend minimum wage coverage to them, domestic workers were not protected by any major federal labor law.

As California showed by passing the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, states can play a leading role in providing basic labor standards for workers abandoned by federal labor law. Just as the United Farm Workers elevated the plight of farmworkers to national attention beginning in the 1960s - and which resulted in passage of the California law - groups such as Domestic Workers United and the National Domestic Workers Alliance have just begun in the last decade to bring similar attention to promoting state and federal reforms on behalf of domestic workers.

Precedent-Setting Standards: Because of the challenging employer-employee relationship involved in domestic employment, the Senate law seeks to create a standard contract for all domestic workers specifying benefits that they are owed. The New York Assembly version has more limited but important benefits - guaranteeing a minimum wage law, prohibiting mandatory overtime, overtime pay, guaranteeing one day of rest per week, and directing the state's Labor Department to investigate a framework for providing employer-provided healthcare and collective bargaining - while the Senate version also provides for:

Paid time off, including six paid holidays, five vacation days, and seven paid sick days (with provision for holiday pay and increased overtime rate on holidays)
Two-weeks, written notice of termination, with violations subject to back-pay
Criminal penalties for violations, including misdemeanor penalties of up to $20,000 and one year in prison for first violations, and similar felony penalties for subsequent offenses
Enforcement either through civil action or prosecution by the Labor Department or Attorney General, with willful violations subject to fines equal to 25% of unpaid wages

A National Breakthrough on Paid Sick Days: Should the paid time off provisions of the Senate bill be included in the final version of the law, New York will be the first state in the country to establish paid time off as a basic labor standard, not just for domestic workers, but for any private-sector employees -- advancing basic labor standards that are common throughout the rest of the world but sorely lacking in the United States. The new law is especially significant for the movement to enact paid sick leave legislation, since it would also be the first time an entire industrial sector has acquired the right to take paid sick time off from work. The Domestic Workers' Rights bill has not met with organized opposition thus far, primarily because of the informal nature of domestic employment.

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Paid Sick Days: Healthier Workers, Healthier Families

PSN — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:24:41 +0000

With the H1N1 virus affecting communities across the nation, public health officials are highlighting the problem of Americans who lack paid sick days to take care of themselves or stay home with sick children sent home from school. More than 59 million workers do not have any paid sick days and more than 86 million do not have paid sick days to care for other members of their family who are ill.

As part of our multi-state shared agenda, the Progressive States Network is working with its partners and leading experts to promote paid sick days reforms in states across the country. These reforms will allow parents to take care of sick children and workers to be more productive, while protecting the overall public health and preventing transmission of diseases within the workplace. Fully 86% of the public in polling by the Public Welfare Foundation in 2008 supported enacting laws that guarantee paid sick days for all workers.

With a concerted effort throughout the states, it is a policy that brings together public health advocates, unions, faith-based organizations, low-wage worker advocates, and women’s rights groups. Such a campaign also forces conservatives to either live up to their rhetoric of “family values” and help enact the policy or choose the interests of bad employers over the interests of families.

Table of Contents:

- Summary of Paid Sick Days Policy and Why It Matters

- Messaging on Paid Sick Days

- Building Paid Sick Days Campaigns

- PSN Support in Your States

Summary of Paid Sick Days Policy and Why It Matters

State policy should require employers to allow workers to accumulate paid sick days based on the number of hours or weeks they have worked and allow those paid sick days to be used to take care of their own illness, that of a family member, or to deal with an abusive relationship. While many states provide certain public employees with paid sick leave, workers in the private sector generally lack specific time off for illness.

Why It Matters: Paid sick days allow workers to be more productive, improve the general public health, and allow employees to take care of medical needs without fearing employer retaliation or losing incomes. Although many Americans believe that they are entitled to paid sick leave for themselves or for family members, more than 22 million working women lack paid sick days, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The burden on working parents is especially strong when children fall ill, since 70% of workers do not have the right to paid sick days that can be used to care for a sick child. 16% of workers report in polling that they or a family member have been fired, suspended, or otherwise punished or that they would be fired if they missed work due to illness.

Fortunately, cities such as San Francisco, CA, Washington, DC, and Milwaukee, WI have successfully passed mandatory paid sick days, while multiple states have introduced variations on the bill. All states already provide paid sick days to their own employees. Eight states— California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin— allow workers who already have paid sick days to use them to care for certain family members. So moving towards paid sick days for all workers is the next step towards assuring that all families have options when they or family members fall ill.

Summary of Policy Details: The National Partnership for Women & Families and A Better Balance, with technical assistance from the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement, have drafted model legislation for local advocates considering launching a paid sick days campaign.

Bill Summaries Paid Sick Days and Safe Time Main Points Paid Sick Days and Safe Days Model, Explained Section by Section	Model Legislation Model Paid Sick Day and Safe Time Bill

Key provisions include:

Accrual of Days: Under paid sick days policy, workers would accrue one hour of paid sick and safe time for every 30 hours worked (or other block of time chosen by policymakers) with some maximum amount earned each year.
Uses of Sick and Safe Days: Paid sick and safe time should be available to care for a worker's own illness, to care for a family member and to address issues arising from domestic violence or sexual assault.
Anti-Retaliation: One key provision in any paid sick days law must be tough anti-retaliation language to assure that employees taking advantage of their rights are not punished directly or indirectly for doing so.
Treatment of Small Businesses: Policymakers may want to create a different amount of paid sick days that can be accrued for small businesses and decide how long an employee must work for a business before using paid sick and safe time. However, while polling shows some support for requiring smaller employers to provide a smaller number of days off than larger employers, only 15% of the public thinks small business should be exempted from paid sick days requirements altogether.

Messaging on Paid Sick Days

Enacting paid sick days legislation is one of the most popular possible initiatives with the public, according to opinion surveys. As mentioned above, 86% of the public (including 75% of Republicans) favor a basic labor standard that would guarantee all workers a minimum number of paid sick days. This translates politically into 46% of the public saying that a politician supporting such legislation would make them more likely to vote for them, with only 10% saying it would make them less likely to support them at election time. State polling in California, Connecticut, Maine, Ohio and North Carolina have all shown similar levels of support for paid sick days legislation.

Make Paid Sick Days a Values Issue: Proponents of paid sick days legislation should make the issue a key part of a values debate in the states. If the issue becomes one of values, this will force conservative opponents of the legislation into the position of being seen as anti-family and not caring about public health. Politically, it can also drive a rift between grassroots “family values” conservative voters and elected officials who choose the interests of bad employers over the interests of families. In polls, 77% of the public found the following statement a convincing values argument for paid sick days:

In America, you shouldn't have to risk your job to take care of your family, and you shouldn't have to put your family at risk just to do your job... Our nation needs new labor standards to accommodate the needs of today's working families. If we believe in family values, it's time to value families.

Win or lose, paid sick days campaigns are a chance to put "family values" conservatives on the record so that voters can see whether their rhetoric extends to helping parents when they need to stay home with a sick child.

Public Policy Arguments in favor of Paid Sick Days Legislation: To cement public support for paid sick days, state leaders can emphasize a few key policy points:

Paid Sick Days Promote Public Health: When people work sick or have to send their children to school sick, this undermines both family health and the health of the rest of our communities. Yet, one poll in Ohio found that half the respondents had gone to work sick to avoid losing pay. For, example, nearly half of stomach “flu”-related outbreaks caused by the norovirus are linked to ill food-service workers. Viruses spread more quickly when adults and children don't stay home, while children infecting playmates and those playmates infecting their parents in turn. All children recover faster when parents care for them and it reduces health care costs. Paid sick days would help those with chronic illness seek preventive care that would save billions, since 78% of health care dollars are spent on those with chronic conditions.
Paid Sick Days Helps Parents Balance Work and Family: More than 94 million working people do not have a paid sick day to care for a sick child, yet most child-care facilities have policies requiring sick children to stay home. Working parents with paid sick time or paid vacation days are five times more likely to stay home to care for their sick children than those without paid time off.
Paid Sick Days Provides Economic Security for Individuals in Recession: With over ten percent of American workers unemployed, employees without legal paid sick days are even less likely to risk their jobs asking for a day off when sick. And with many families facing at least one member without a job or with reduced hours, most workers cannot afford to take an unpaid day off even when needed.
Paid Sick Days Helps Victims of Domestic Violence: With "safe days," victims of domestic violence can gain the opportunity to take the steps needed to separate from an abusive partner. Between 25 and 50 percent of victims report losing a job, at least in part, due to dealing with domestic violence.

Dealing with Potential Business Opposition: While some businesses are reluctant to individually offer days off, the cumulative effect of illness spreading across the country due to people and their children not staying home when sick hurts the overall economy. It is estimated that people working while sick costs the national economy as much as $180 billion per year in lost work and productivity. Add in the costs of children sent to school because their parents couldn't afford to stay home with them, thereby spreading illness to additional families, and the economic costs to businesses just mount higher.

While many of the established business lobbies defer to their worst employer members in opposing paid sick days legislation, there are employers who recognize that we all lose out economically when pandemics are allowed to spread because people work sick and parents can't stay home with their sick kids. See this CLASP primer on outreach to local businesses to build business support for the policy.

And the public does not believe that paid sick days legislation will hurt businesses or their profits. In fact, 82% of the public agrees with the following statement (and 57% find this statement "very convincing"):

Requiring paid sick days doesn't hurt employers' bottom line. Sick employees who show up at work are less productive and they remain sick and less productive longer when they work while sick. Also, they infect other workers and this further reduces productivity and hurts profits.

If these public concerns are continually highlighted in legislative debates, there will be little public support for the business opponents of paid sick days policy arguing it will somehow undermine the economy or individual businesses. Instead, they will recognize that paid sick days is ultimately a benefit to the economy and to individual businesses thinking about long-term productivity.

Building Paid Sick Days Campaigns

Progressive States Network is working with a range of allied organizations so state leaders can tap resources from those groups to help them in their legislative work. We will be working with those allies to strengthen communication between legislators and organizational allies across the states working on paid sick days, while providing other technical support as needed during policy campaigns.

National groups working on paid sick days include the National Partnership for Women & Families, CLASP, ACORN, MomsRising, National Association of Working Women (9to5), and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

A number of state-based alliances currently supporting paid sick days are organized under the umbrella of the Family Values @ Work Consortium and the National Partnership tracks state campaigns on their website as well.

Some Key Resources: A number of organizations provide research and other tools to support paid sick day campaigns in the states, including:

Polling: The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago has prepared this document, Paid Sick Days: A Basic Labor Standard for the 21st Century, analyzing public support for and messaging that works on paid sick days policy.
Fact Sheets: The National Partnership archives a range of fact sheets, including Paid Sick Days Improve Public Health, Working Women Need Paid Sick Days, Paid Sick Days Make Good Business Sense and Workers Caring for Older Relatives Need Paid Sick Days.
See Research Studies by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and CLASP, as well as an studies by a range of organizations archived by the National Partnership
Researching Out to Business Allies: CLASP has a primer on Paid Sick Days: Reaching Out to Businesses to Say YES to a Level Playing Field to help state and local advocates recruit business leaders, owners, and trade groups in support and an Advocates' Answers to Businesses' Frequently Asked Questions document to provides an overview of the paid sick days legislation aimed at dispelling any myths about the policy.
Calculating How a Paid Sick Days Initiative will Benefit Workers in a Particular State: The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has a set of tools using Labor Department data to calculate the number of workers by industry who have, or don't have, paid sick days.
Video: 1000 Voices Archive has a film archive of storytelling tools developed by Creative Counsel.

PSN Support in Your States

PSN has already begun working with legislators and advocates to provide support for them as they introduce paid sick days legislation around the country. We'd like to work with many more!

Our policy staff are also available to answer questions and supply information not on the website. Legislators and advocates can contact us about supporting Paid Sick Days campaigns through our website or by emailing paidsickdays@progressivestates.org.

As bills are introduced and sessions begin, PSN will provide ongoing resources and updates on paid sick days legislation, as well as help coordinate strategy and information sharing with our partners among sponsors and advocates.

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Paid Sick Days Passes in Connecticut House

Adam Thompson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:53:11 +0000

Last week, the Connecticut House approved legislation to guarantee paid sick days off for employees in any business with fifty or more employees. While the Senate adjourned the regular session without voting on the bill, a special budget session to be convened might have a chance to enact the bill.

The outbreak of H1N1 flu was cited in the debate as a recent example of why families need sick days to stay home for their own health as well as that of co-workers. The bill would provide for one hour of leave for every 40 hours that an employee works and can be used to care for a sick child or to seek treatment because of domestic violence or sexual assault. The law applies only to hourly workers.

Polling across the country shows overwhelming support for paid sick days legislation: 89% of the public supports a basic labor standard guaranteeing all workers a minimum number of paid sick days.

And by preventing illness being spread in the workplace and helping more working parents stay in the workforce, the economy will be strengthened. In Milwaukee, which enacted paid sick days last year, one study on the likely effects of the Milwaukee ordinance found it would actually save businesses $38 million a year in reduced employee turnover and gains to public health.

Fifteen states introduced paid sick days legislation this year, reflecting the rising concern over the issue across the country.

Resources:
Everybody benefits - Connecticut's Campaign for Paid sick days
Paid Sick Days- National partnership for women and families
Progressive States Network - New Polling: Paid Sick Days and Family Leave Overwhelming Political Winners
Progresive States Network - Paid Sick Days Victory in Milwaukee- But Business Lobby is Going to Court

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Paid Sick Days Bills Moving Across Country

Caroline Fan — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:40:48 +0000

Fifteen states have introduced paid sick days legislation to ensure that workers are able to regain their health without losing pay, or even worse, their jobs. These are based on model policies that have already passed in San Francisco, CA, Milwaukee, WI and Washington, DC.

During fragile economic times, workers are too often forced to choose between their health, or the health of their kids, and maintaining a paycheck. Paid sick days legislation helps families avoid that tradeoff, while increasing workplace productivity by ensuring that workers don’t have to work while sick, thereby decreasing the spread of disease to coworkers. Many bills under debate protect parents’ ability to take care of their children and other immediate family members, and time off to deal with domestic abuse. A number of bills have especially promising campaigns:

North Carolina’s HB 177 has been introduced and is supported by more than 30 organizations, including the AARP and ACORN.
Connecticut’s HB 6187 passed out of committee and is closer to becoming law.
Minnesota's HF 612 / SF 461 is scheduled for a committee hearing on March 6th.
Massachusetts’s HD 1726 / SD 624 is being promoted as creating an equal playing field for all businesses, since the majority of workers in Massachusetts already have some form of paid sick days, and as a way to contain health care costs in the state. A report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that paid sick days legislation would save $1.5 million annually in health care expenditures just from lower flu contagion at work.

Advocates promote paid sick days as both a moral issue but also smart, common sense policy that can hold down health care costs while increasing productivity and decreasing turnover.

Resources

Everybody benefits - Connecticut's Campaign for Paid sick days
National partnership for women and families
Valuing Good Health in Massachusetts - Institute for women's policy research.
Paid Sick Days on Ballot in Milwaukee - Progressive States Network

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Paid Sick Days Victory in Milwaukee- But Business Lobby is Going to Court

PSN — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:23:11 +0000

One key victory on election day was a victory for paid sick days in Milwaukee by a commanding 69-31% of city voters. Parents in Milwaukee who need to take a day off to care for a sick child can now afford to do so now that their paid sick days referendum has Milwaukee following the lead of San Francisco, CA and Washington DC. in adopting a program to require employers to provide paid sick days. Under the measure, full-time workers in large businesses will earn up to 9 paid sick days a year and workers in smaller businesses with fewer than 10 employees will earn up to 5 days a year.

While business leaders didn't challenge the referendum at the ballot box because they knew polling showed overwhelming public support for paid sick days legislation, but the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce has launched a legal challenge to the approved ordinance.

Community and labor groups are working with Mayor Tom Barrett, who opposed the measure but has decided to respect the voters' wishes. The referendum must be implemented within 90 days of publication in local papers. While the Milwaukee business leaders are trying to argue that the local law endangers local businesses, their counterparts in San Francisco, where similar rules are already in place, disagrees that such policies lead to businesses relocating:

Jim Lazarus, the senior vice president of public policy for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, said more than 90 percent of member businesses already offered sick-leave policies so the new law didn’t change much. “I can’t imagine this burden would be at such a level that a business would relocate based on that.”

While some business lobbies are fighting paid sick days laws, others obviously recognize that the burden is low but the gains for families are tremendous. Rather than hurting business competitiveness, one study on the likely effects of the Milwaukee ordinance found it would actually save businesses $38 million a year in reduced employee turnover and gains to public health. Given the popularity of paid sick days and the weakness of their economic arguments, hopefully the Milwaukee lobby will soon give up on their legal fight and work with their employees to improve their families' lives and the public health.

Resources

Paid sick days Milwaukee
Progressive States Network - Paid Sick Days and Family Leave Political Winners
Progressive States Network - Paid Sick Days on Ballot in Milwaukee
Sloan Work and Family Institute - Sick Leave Policies
Institute for Women in the Workplace - Valuing Good Health in Milwaukee: The Costs and Benefits of Paid Sick Days

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The Financial Bailout and the Challenge for the States: De-Leveraging Working Families

Nathan Newman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:09:42 +0000

According to The Wall Street Journal, "Fed and Treasury officials have identified the disease. It's called de-leveraging, or the unwinding of debt. During the credit boom, financial institutions and American households took on too much debt."

But let's not buy into a false equivalence of "financial institutions" and those "American households" borrowing beyond their means. Wall Street leverage was built on obscene wealth looking to become only more obscene, while the leveraging and debt of working families was driven by expanding income inequality, stagnant wages and rising health care costs that left families with less and less money available to gain a basic foothold in the American middle class.

As this Dispatch will emphasize, policymakers need to not just “de-leverage" the burden of debt speculators in the financial casino; they need to take action to reverse the economic burden on working families that has forced so many of them into debt in the first place.

The Real Crisis Facing Working Families

Let's be clear: the crisis we're talking about today is not shareholders losing a few dollars or even a few firms ceasing to exist and their traders losing their jobs. That just reflects the real crisis that has been sweeping across this nation for years. For regular families, it is not about financial speculation, but being driven into debt by what New York Times writer Steven Greenhouse has called in his recent book the Big Squeeze:

The bottom 90% of households saw only a 10% increase in real income in the three decades between 1976 and 2006, while the richest 1% saw a 232% income increase in the same period.
In the most recent 2000s business cycle, employment increased at only one-third of the pace of the 1990s cycle.
A quarter to thirty percent of the jobs actually created since 2000 were due to the housing bubble, a froth of jobs that are quickly disappearing. Yet, between 1995 and 2005, our nation has lost 3 million core manufacturing jobs that represented real wealth creation, almost all of that loss occurring during the 2000s business cycle.
Real costs burdening families have been escalating. The recent jump in energy prices comes on top of rising education costs, day care costs, and most punishingly, health care costs. One study found that 49 million Americans under 65 lived in families where more than 10 percent of family income went to health care costs, with 19 million spending 20 percent of income on health care.

The result of this squeeze of stagnant incomes and rising costs is unsurprising. With less money in their pockets, families were pushed into greater debt, which became a vice pushing many of those with homes into foreclosure as the housing bubble bursts and prices fall, especially as the predatory terms of their "subprime mortgages" sprung into action.

More Resources

State Leaders Saw the Subprime Mortgage Crisis Coming - But Feds Block Reforms

Even as those economic realities building up over years were ignored by national politicians and the mainstream media, those same national political leaders and media were lauding and even encouraging "financial innovation." At its core, this "innovation" meant using advanced technology to skirt regulation of things previously prohibited under the law and taking risks with debt that previous generations of regulators would have prohibited without the capital on hand to back up failed loans.

That those loans are going bad in communities across the country speaks to the real economic burdens on families; many families facing these burdens were lured into mortgages with "subprime" terms that left them in economic traps when the housing market went south.

Some in Congress actually recognized the problem of under-capitalized mortgages as early as 1994, when they passed the Homeownership Opportunity and Equity Protection Act. This law required the Federal Reserve to regulate the loan-origination standards of mortgage companies that were not otherwise government-regulated. But Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan failed to implement the law.

States Took Action but Feds Blocked Reform: Community organizations began agitating against "subprime loans," the polite term for predatory lenders targeting vulnerable working families. Pushed by these advocates, 30 states in the 1990s and 2000s passed laws to implement tougher standards on mortgage companies since the federal government was failing to implement the 1994 Act.

But adding insult to injury, the federal government not only failed to use the 1994 law to restrain predatory lending, it went to court claiming that law preempted state protections. As PSN detailed last year, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency claimed in 2004 that federal law preempted Georgia's Fair Lending Act, which had offered protection against predatory lending, including outlawing extreme prepayment fees or penalties, unreasonable monthly payments, and increased interest rates after default. This was followed by the OCC preempting New Jersey's Home Ownership Security Act, which prohibited abusive lending practices, which was followed by OCC challenges to other state laws. The federal courts largely backed this federal preemption of state authority with federal courts striking down predatory lending laws in a number of states.

Whatever the courts decide now, the damage has been done. During the critical period of the recent housing bubble, as speculation and predatory lending ran amok, state regulators were so involved in defending their laws in court that their effectiveness was undermined and the costs are being borne by some of the most vulnerable borrowers in the market. A report by the Center for Responsible Lending released in December 2006 showed that as many as 2.2 million subprime borrowers face foreclosure on their home loans, but few at the federal level listened to the warnings.

While some national leaders and media are saying "we" all have to cut back to pay for the excesses of the financial failures, state leaders should be loud in proclaiming that most of us didn't create this crisis; in fact, most advocates for working families and most state legislatures took action early on to try to restrain subprime predatory lending. It was colossal stupidity and greed by the wealthiest financial corporations in the country, along with lax federal financial regulation and their active assault on those state anti-predatory lending laws that created this crisis. So responsibility and the costs should be borne by those who caused the problem and those who benefited from those excesses.

State leaders need to speak up against bad federal policy: One thing state leaders should be vigilant on is making sure that supposed "reforms" don't undercut their present ability to protect working families. Earlier this year, the Bush Administration, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, proposed a sweeping new proposal, its Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure, to "reform" regulatory oversight of different financial sectors. But the proposal was little more than an industry wish list, including replacement of state regulation of insurance with a single federal regulator, which would likely preempt stronger consumer insurance protections at the state level. At the time, Michael McRaith, insurance director for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, noted that insurance companies, "[v]ery large, wealthy companies would get to choose the lesser level of regulations," much as banks were able to escape tougher state mortgage regulations for lax ones at the federal level. Even now, rightwing politicians are seeking to use the financial crisis to gut state insurance regulations. So state leaders should be loud in demanding that any federal policies not weaken the ability of state regulators to be an alternative check on financial abuses.

More Resources

Lessons from the $700 Billion Bailout: States Should Take Bold Action to Help Working Families

Now Washington is discussing stabilizing the financial system with $700 billion in federal investments. After an initial proposal that was a pure giveaway to the banks, some improvements by progressive national leaders may provide some taxpayer protections, though the proposal will still hardly address the real burdens facing working families. The final plan for some improvements, including some taxpayer protections, the principle of an equity stake for the government in firms bailed out, and helping mortgage holders. But given that the plan is initially being implemented by the same federal regulators who failed in the first place, these principles may well not be implemented in practice.

However, state leaders can learn some lessons from the whole credit crisis debacle and the bailout bill:

The Feds Won't Save Working Families by Themselves: While there were some discussions about increasing aid to states to help working families as part of the deal, this was largely blocked by conservatives at the federal level. The bottom line is that state policy leaders should not depend on the federal government to take on the fundamental challenge of easing the burdens on working families that underlie the original demand for subprime mortgages in the first place. State leaders should demand and lobby for whatever aid Congress will allocate to help states and families, but the states need to take leadership on this issue. The worst thing possible is for state governments to slash spending on education, health care and help for those same families in the middle of a recession.
Big Problems, Big Investments Needed: But the $700 billion committed by the federal government, whether this particular proposal is the right one or not, shows that our nation has the resources to address big problems if we have the political will. States need to make similarly bold, not incremental plans to address the real needs of working families. While the temptation is for states to cut back in hard times, they should instead be increasing their spending to counterbalance lower spending by working families.
Investments in Economic Growth Pay Dividends in the Future: In principle, the new version of the federal bailout would require banks whose debt is purchased to give the federal government an equity stake in those firms, so if they recover financially, taxpayers would see more of their investments paid back. The idea is that while government may make initial upfront investments, returns from economic growth and contributions from the wealthy who most benefit should ultimately fund such long-term investments. Just as the feds are projecting that upfront investments in the financial system will lead to a financial recovery and higher asset values that will help pay off initial investments in troubled assets, an even better investment is for states to help working families "de-leverage" their financial burdens. Investing in job growth, whether through education or transit or other means, will pay off in the longer term with higher tax revenues.
States May be the Only Institution that Can Borrow and Invest Effectively: A key lesson is that in an economic credit crunch, it is government and often only government that can continue to borrow and invest to keep the economy moving forward. State tax and bonding authority, if focused on real investments, can create jobs and put money in the hands of working families in a time of economic crisis. Notably, states have access to credit at less expensive rates than a private sector caught in the credit crunch and can therefore be a critical player in jumpstarting a range of initiatives.
Taxing the Wealthy for Economic Investments Makes Economic Sense:If the borrowing needed does seem too daunting, financially or politically, then raise taxes from your wealthiest residents, the one group who saw their incomes triple in the last three decades. Taxing the wealthy to fund long-term investments is not a punitive goal, but an economically rational one. Not only do the wealthy benefit the most from economic growth, as the federal bailout plan acknowledges, but money in the hands of the wealthy does not, contrary to supply-side economics, trickle down to working families. In fact, much of it gets flushed down speculative toilets, as during the S&L scandal in the 1980s, the dotcom meltdown, and the current speculative subprime crisis. A dollar of taxes collected from the wealthy and put in the hands of working families is a dollar that is almost guaranteed to be spent on goods and services in the real, not speculative economy, and far more likely to stay circulating in your state to multiply into broader economic growth.

States should be emboldened to reject the remaining holdouts of rightwing ideology and reinvigorate their regulations on behalf of working families and investments in real economic growth.

Inexpensive Ways for States to Help De-leverage Working Families

There are basic standards that we can return to the workplace and our economy that don't cost the state treasury much if anything, yet will put more money in the hands of working families and help them cope with their costs and debt burdens.

Raise the Minimum Wage: The most obvious action is to further raise the minimum wage, whose value has been destroyed by inflation in the last three decades. Compared to 1968, when the federal minimum wage was the equivalent of $9.34 per hour accounting for inflation, even the highest state minimum wage rates have lost value against inflation. States should be aiming to raise their minimum wage rates to that level or a bit higher, and then index it to inflation to avoid erosion over time. Part of that effort should be toughening enforcement of the law, to assure that those owed the minimum wage and overtime receive it.
Help Balance Work and Family: Given that it usually takes at least two incomes to sustain a household budget these days, helping families navigate the tensions between the demands of work and family are critical. States moving to enact paid family leave and paid sick days laws guaranteeing all workers time to care for themselves and family members without fear of losing their jobs are desperately needed.
Raise Labor Standards and Union Rights: States should work to raise wage standards across the board, including strengthening the ability of all workers to join a labor union to help them demand a fairer wage share of profits generated from their employers. These can include using government contracting rules to promote stronger prevailing wage standards in more sectors, extending bargaining rights to agricultural industries and groups of independent contractors denied bargaining rights under federal law, and expanding general free speech rights in the workplace to better protect workplace-based advocacy for workers rights.

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Long-Term Investments to Create Strong State Economies

On the other hand, there is no getting around the fact that we need to shift our economy from one where speculation has soaked up trillions of dollars to one that invests in good jobs for working families. And some of those investments need to be by state governments, because while they may require significant upfront costs, the results will permanently strengthen state economies, lower costs for taxpayers, and save money for both government and household budgets over the long-term, helping to pay off any borrowing needed.

Health Care: The reality is that our health care system suffers from similar problems to Wall Street speculation; too lax regulation, too much profiteering, and too much waste without real returns. Investing in comprehensive health care for all state residents will not just help working families burdened by health care costs, it will likely save money. Even though the United States spends substantially more per person than any other country, the World Health Organization ranked our health care system 37th in the world in 2000 with working families paying out of pocket costs at twice the international average. Clearly, we spend more, but we get less. In Why Not the Best?, the Commonwealth Fund found that we would save $100 billion in administrative costs if we reached top efficiency benchmarks achieved elsewhere in more integrated government-managed health care systems. So the returns from comprehensive health care investments could easily pay for themselves over time.
Infrastructure Investments: A report last year by the Urban Land Institute found that 83 percent of the nation's transportation infrastructure is not capable of meeting the nation's needs over the next 10 years. There is a $1.6 trillion deficit in needed infrastructure spending through 2010 for repairs and maintenance, yet the U.S is spending less than 1 percent of its GDP on infrastructure. Making serious new investments in infrastructure is critical to increasing productivity, expanding economic growth, creating jobs, and making our states more economically competitive globally.
Broadband: It is estimated that widespread adoption of high-speed Internet will add $134 billion to the U.S. economy annually and create 1.2 million new jobs per year. A recent study found that for every 1% point increase in state high-speed Internet penetration, employment is projected to increase by 0.2% to 0.3%. Assuring that all residents have access to affordable, high-speed broadband is critical for long-term economic growth, especially when we are competing internationally with countries like Japan where households have access to broadband 8 times our average speed at roughly 1/2 of the cost. Again, these are investments that will build permanent economic strength and jobs for working families.
Green Jobs and Clean Energy: Investing in energy independence and green jobs -- from retrofitting homes to alternative fuels to mass transit -- promises some of the highest returns on state investment possible. More energy dollars will go to creating jobs at home and help eliminate wasted energy use. In many cases, families just need help making the energy investments and new technologies that will lower their energy bills far more over time - a clear place where states can help families in ways that, while requiring upfront state spending, will help pay for initial investments over time.

In a time of crisis for working families, state leaders need to step up with both the money and political will to make the investments that will create both more job and better wages for workers. The reward will not only be the de-leveraging of the debt burden for those families but, over time, the higher tax revenues needed to pay back any bonds used to pay for these initiatives.

More Resources

Resources

The Real Crisis Facing Working Families

Center for Budget Policy & Priorities - Average Income In 2006 Up $60,000 For Top 1 Percent Of Households, Just $430 For Bottom 90 Percent
Economic Policy Institute - REVERSAL OF FORTUNE: Economic gains of 1990s overturned for African Americans from 2000-07
Brookings Institution - Bearing the Brunt: Manufacturing Job Loss in the Great Lakes Region, 1995-2005
Banthin and Bernard - "Changes in financial burdens for health care: National estimates for the population younger than 65 years, 1996-2003," Journal of the American Medical Association and "Financial burden of health care, 2001-2004," Health Affairs

State Leaders Saw the Subprime Mortgage Crisis Coming - But Feds Block Reforms

Progressive States Network - The Predatory Lending Bubble and How the Feds Made it Worse
Progressive States Network - Gutting State Regulation of Insurance under Bush Administration's Financial Oversight "Reform"
Center for Responsible Lending - Federal Preemption Favors Predatory Lending
Center for Responsible Lending - Losing Ground: Foreclosures in the Subprime Market and Their Cost to Homeowners

Inexpensive Ways for States to Help De-leverage Working Families

Progressive States Network - States Still Leading Feds on Minimum Wage
Progressive States Network - Paid Sick Days & Paid Leave Bills Approved in D.C. and New Jersey
Progressive States Network - Strengthening the Freedom to Form Labor Unions

Long-Term Investments to Create Strong State Economies

Progressive States Network, U.S. Infrastructure: An Economic Disaster Waiting to Happen
Progressive States Network, Health Care for All: Policy Options for 2009
Progressive States Network, Broadband and Technology Investments: Policy Options for 2009
Apollo Alliance, Clean Energy, Good Jobs
Commonwealth Fund, Why Not the Best?
EDUCAUSE, A Blueprint for Big Broadband

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Paid Sick Days on Ballot in Milwaukee

Nathan Newman — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:35:31 +0000

Paid Sick Days on Ballot in Milwaukee

Milwaukee has a paid sick leave referendum on the ballot for November that would allow employees to take leave for medical treatment, preventive care, or diagnosis for themselves, as well as to care for a close family member who is sick or who needs diagnosis or preventive care. Additionally, employees would be allowed to use the time to deal with domestic violence or sexual assault (for example, using accrued time to flee to safety.) Employees at firms with 10 workers or less could accumulate up to 40 hours, whereas larger companies would have to provide up to 72 hours of paid sick leave.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research published a study this month, which estimates that nearly half of Milwaukee workers will benefit from the ballot initiative if passed and that employer savings will greatly outweigh any costs. In fact, employer savings would total $38 million annually, largely due to decreased turnover. Additionally, workers would save $1 million a year in health care expenditures due to decreased flu contagion at work. Philadelphia is looking at a similar bill.

No one likes coming into work sick or leaving an ill child at home, but too many working men and women fear that if they take time off they will lose their job or not be able to cover the monthly rent. According to a 2007 Wall Street Journal poll, 80% of Americans favor having employers provide paid sick time to employees and 78% say that employers who fail to do so pay for it in other ways, such as reduced productivity. [This would perhaps be a better leading paragraph]

States and Localities Lead the Way: Increasingly, states and localities are addressing the issue through a combination of bills and ballot initiatives.

In San Francisco, CA, the voters approved a paid sick days ballot initiative in 2006.
Washington, DC City Council earlier this year approved a paid sick leave law.
The California Assembly has already passed AB 2716, a paid sick days bill that would ensure all workers in the state have access to paid sick days to deal with routine illnesses or to care for a sick child.

The following states have or are considering paid sick leave legislation: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia. The National Partnership for Women and Families maps out what localities and states are working towards paid sick leave and where we have already won victories.

Currently the vast majority of American workers are shortchanging their health and productivity by working while ill, not to mention potentially impacting the health of others. Paid sick leave allows all of us to focus on recovering so that we can be better providers and employees. It’s a common-sense public health solution — one that values working families and one that’s long overdue.

Resources

Paid Sick Days on Ballot in Milwaukee

Wall Street Journal/ Harris Interactive - Most U.S. Adults Support Paid Sick Leave
Institute for Women’s Policy Research — Valuing Good Health in Milwaukee: The Costs and Benefits of Paid Sick Days
San Francisco Paid Sick Leave
Progressive States Network - Stateside Dispatch: Paid Sick Days and Paid Leave Bills Approved in D.C.
CA AB 2716

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Paid Sick Days Approved by California Assembly

PSN — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:28:44 +0000

Last Thursday, the California Assembly approved a bill guaranteeing all workers in the state a minimum number of paid sick days each year, becoming the second legislative chamber in the country to do so following approval in the Connecticut Senate. Washington, D.C. and San Francisco have enacted paid sick days reform into law locally.

Ohio will likely be considering a similar reform on its ballot this fall and a new report by Policy Matters of Ohio highlights the stories and voices of workers for whom paid sick days are critically needed. The report highlights the tragedy of a mother having to return to work the day after birth for fear of losing their job, a husband who can't go to the hospital when his wife was getting chemotherapy, or a restaurant worker having to come to work sick and thereby endangering others' health, along with positive stories of how paid sick days policies improve workplace experiences.

Roughly half of all American workers don't have paid sick days policies at their workplace and even more can't use those days for care of family members, so enactment of California's and Ohio's paid sick plans would be a welcome precedent for the nation. Passing paid sick days legislation is a wildly popular issue, as a new Ohio poll shows-- by a margin of 71 to 24 percent, Ohioans polled favor the proposed paid sick days ballot measure there.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - New Polling: Paid Sick Days and Family Leave Overwhelming Political Winners
CA AB2716
Policy Matters Ohio - Paid Sick Days: Voices from Ohio
Sick Days Ohio
National Partnership for Women & Families - States and Cities Taking on Paid Sick Days in 2008
National Partnership for Women & Families - Paid Sick Days Resources
ACORN - Paid Sick Days Campaign
CLASP - Paid Sick Days: A Legislator's Guide

Paid Sick Days & Paid Leave Bills Approved in D.C. and New Jersey

PSN — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:21:47 +0000

Efforts to make the workplace more family-friendly achieved some important victories in the last week in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey.

Paid Sick Days in D.C.: On March 4th, the Washington D.C. City Council voted to become the second city to require most employers to provide paid sick days for employees. Under the Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act, employees will be guaranteed:

seven days of paid leave at firms with 100 employees

five days at firms with 25-99 employees

three days in firms with 24 or less employees

a pro-rated amount of sick days off for part-time workers

Last minute amendments approved on 7-6 votes weakened the bill by delaying benefits until a year after an employee starts work, exempted most health care workers and wait staff, and created a "hardship" exemption loophole for some businesses. But community and labor leaders in the city still lauded the bill for providing up to 200,000 city workers with a needed benefit to care for themselves and their families in times of sickness.

Paid Leave in New Jersey: On March 3rd, the New Jersey State Senate approved S 786, which would authorize six weeks of paid family leave during any 12-month period to allow employees to care for an ill family member, newborn or recently adopted child. Employees would receive two-thirds of their regular weekly pay, up to $524 per week. The leave would be funded through contributions made by all employees in the state of 0.14% of earned wages (roughly a quarter per week for minimum wage workers) into the State Disability Fund; the Fund would then distribute the funds to an estimated 38,000 people per year once the system is up and running.

If approved by the New Jersey State Assembly today (which is considered likely), the legislation will make New Jersey the third state after California and Washington to establish long-term paid family leave.

Well over a dozen states have been considering paid sick days or paid leave legislation this year, including an Ohio paid sick days initiative likely to appear on the ballot in November.

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