By Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MUNICIPAL DISTRICT — The organization representing city restaurant workers fighting for paid sick days jokingly suggested the industry should change its tag line to: “The New York City Restaurant Industry: We keep New York sick.”
The group, Restaurant Opportunities Center New York (ROC-NY), joined several workers and labor activists at a City Council committee hearing Tuesday on the controversial proposal to grant paid sick days to the approximately 1.7 million employees — including a large percentage or restaurant workers — who do not have them.
“We see what happens when a sick restaurant worker goes to work,” said Jeff Mansfield, an organizer at ROC-NY, who explained that the health of consumers is threatened when someone with a cold or the flu is forced to go to work and prepare food.
“Disturbingly, industries that have the most contact with the public — food service, hospitality and retail — have the lowest rate of paid sick leave,” said David Jones, who runs the Community Service Society, an organization that promotes the well-being of low-income New Yorkers.
Cherokee Graham was at the hearing to testify. He has worked in the restaurant industry in varying capacities for five years, during which he has not had one paid day off.
Graham is currently working at an Au Bon Pain in Midtown. His boss is generally supportive of the idea of paid sick leave, but worries that employees will take advantage of the policy, taking the days to hang out with friends or otherwise misuse them.
Graham, who said he is a hard worker, needs those paid sick days to survive.
“I’m already making just enough to stay afloat these days,” Graham said. “If I can’t work, I don’t get paid. If I don’t get paid, I don’t eat. If I don’t eat, I don’t live.
The bill being considered by the City Council is modeled after legislation enacted in San Francisco in early 2007 entitling all workers to paid sick days. Officials from the San Francisco’s mayor’s office joined the hearing via video conference — a technological first for the City Council — to outline the law and answer questions.
Like its west coast counterpart, this law would allow employees to accrue paid sick days after 90 days of work, at a rate of one paid hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he supported the legislation during an election debate, but he said that with programs like this, the "devil is in the details."
“We’re going to need some help from Washington, and Albany as well.”
A study done by the city of San Francisco indicated that typically workers did not use all of their allotted paid sick days and that there were very few reports of abuse. The same study showed that paid sick leave was never cited as a reason for businesses closing or for layoffs.
But several small business owners and organizations representing small business project different results. They said while it’s a well-intentioned idea, it is not feasible during this economic climate and will lead to hiring freezes and a swath of business closings.
“In the worst economy since the Great Depression, you have got to be kidding,” said Robert Bookman, a lawyer representing the city's restaurant and nightlife business, of the bill. “You cannot pretend to be pro-small business and pass this legislation.”
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer acknowledged these concerns, but said that the results of a study his office conducted showed that paid sick leave will actually benefit business. He said that the reduced employee turnover and increased loyalty that would result from paid sick days would have a positive effect on businesses’ bottom line.
“New Yorkers should not be put in the position of having to choose between a paycheck, and putting their health at risk,” Stringer said.
The bill’s proponents hope the City Council will pass the legislation before the new year.
