Ohio paid sick leave initiative

Advocates have been pushing for paid sick days since the Family & Medical Leave Act was passed eleven years ago, requiring employers to give employees up to 12 weeks unpaid leave a year, an MSNBC article last Wednesday morning said. Proposed federal legislation would provide seven days of paid sick time for everyone working 30 hours a week or more. That would be prorated for part-time work. ( HR 1542 S910 )

But the federal measure has progressed slowly and the initiative has in many cases sifted down to local levels.

No state currently has paid employee sick days on their books, but more than a dozen have had legislation proposing such in the past year. Ohio’s H.B. 536, introduced this past April, is one, although that initiative appears to be going to be decided by popular vote in November. Ohio governor Ted Strickland opposes the measure here, and similar bills in both Maine and California have met with defeat.

Paid sick days are already the law in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.; it will be a ballot consideration in Milwaukee.