ORDINANCE
WHEREAS, Throughout the year, employees in every industry occasion the need for time away from the workplace to tend to their health or the health of their family. Parents and guardians without paid sick days must lose income and risk losing their jobs when a child is ill or needs medical care; and
WHEREAS, in Chicago forty-three percent of private sector workers are without any paid sick time; and
WHEREAS, Providing the right to earned sick time not only has a positive effect on the health of the employees and their family members but also the health of their fellow workers and the public at large by limiting the exposure to spread of and disease. The largest national survey of U.S. restaurant workers found that two-thirds of restaurant waitstaff and cooks have come to work sick; and
WHEREAS, parents who don't have paid sick time are more than twice as likely as parents with paid sick time to send a sick child to school or daycare, and five times as likely to report taking their child or a family member to a hospital emergency room because they were unable to take time off work during their regular work hours; and
WHEREAS, earned sick time will reduce health care expenditures by promoting access to primary and preventive care. Nationally, providing all workers with paid sick time would result in $1.1 billion in annual savings in hospital emergency department costs; and
WHEREAS, Many employers already recognize that a healthy workforce generates higher productivity as well as the retention of valued employees and thus currently have a sick leave policy in place. Replacing workers can cost anywhere from 25 to 200 percent of an employee's annual compensation; and
WHEREAS, nearly one in four American women report domestic violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lives, nearly one in five womenjhave been raped in their lifetime, and nearly one in six women have been stalked in their lifetime. Many workers, men and women, need time off to care for...
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