Milwaukee Sick Leave Referendum

NeedCoffee

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 11-05-08 AT 11:46AM (CST)[/font][br][br]So we have an office in Milwaukee, and evidently a referendum was passed yesterday requiring employers to offer 9 days sick time to employees in the city of Milwaukee. As I am located at our main office in another state, I have absolutely no knowledge of this referendum and need to become an expert really quick.

Any Milwaukee HRHeroes out there who can help me out? I've been doing web searches for the actual text of the the referendum, but have come up empty handed.

This referendum will have considerable impact on our policies and procedures.....grrrrr. I hate referendums that lack legislative oversight and review! Don't they realize it makes my job more difficult?? #-o

Edit: Evidently the same thing passed a while ago in both Washington DC and San Francisco, so if you're from the area, please weigh in!

SMace

Do you offer PTO?

NeedCoffee

Yes, but we track scheduled and unscheduled absences towards our disciplinary system for attendance. Sickness normally falls into the unscheduled category, as employees can rarely give 24 hrs notice of absence for it. Under this new ordinance, you cannot discipline employees for taking the sick days, nor may the days count towards any sort of total that would lead to discipline...I'm thinking we're just going to either (a) have to go back to 2 buckets for vacation and sick leave, or (b) do away with the scheduled/unscheduled designations and find some other way to monitor attendance for disciplinary purposes.

CarolChapmanWI

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 11-14-08 AT 01:28PM (CST)[/font][br][br]The new ordinance that you reference was passed by binding referendum and provides sick leave benefits for employees working within the City of Milwaukee. The ordinance applies to all employers located within the geographic boundaries of the City of Milwaukee, except for the federal government or “state of Wisconsin, including any office, department, agency, authority, institution, association, society or other body of the state, including the legislative and judiciary, or county or local government.” It requires affected employers to provide a minimum of one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked by an employee, not to exceed 72 hours of sick leave for an employee in a calendar year. Small businesses, as defined in the ordinance (generally, those with 10 or fewer employees in a given week), will only be required to allow accrual of up to 40 hours of sick leave per calendar year, with the employer having the option to provide a higher limit.

Employees will begin accruing sick leave immediately upon commencing employment, but will not be able to use any accrued sick leave until the 90th calendar day following their first day of work. If an employer already has a “paid time-off policy” that meets the sick leave amount and use requirements set forth in the ordinance, this policy will qualify as meeting the mandate of the ordinance and the employer will not need to implement an additional sick leave policy. Sick leave may be used for a number of specific purposes, including employee’s own illness, illness of child or other family member as defined in the ordinance, as well as for certain activities related to domestic abuse or sexual assault. The ordinance also contains leave carry-over provisions, with the threshold coverage per calendar year not to exceed the 72/40 hour requirements.

Effective November 12, 2008, the ordinance will be enforced by the City’s Equal Opportunity Commission. The City’s Department of Employee Relations is currently drafting administrative rules and developing infrastructure to handle questions and process complaints. The City’s website notes that it expects implementation of all provisions of the ordinance will be accomplished by February 2009. A complete copy of the text of the City of Milwaukee sick leave ordinance can be found at: [url]http://www.city.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/User/jkamme/PaidSickLeaveOrdinance.pdf[/url].

Carol A. Chapman
Axley Brynelson, LLP
Madison, WI

Myrna Minkoff

Very useful. Thanks!

Irie

In what increments are the employees allowed to use this time? Hours? Minutes? Full days only?