Title:
Committee(s) Assignment:
Amendment of Municipal Code Chapter 1-24 and Chapter 2-25 by including paid sick leave provisions within Chicago Minimum Wage Ordinance Committee on Workforce Development and Audit
ORDINANCE
WHEREAS, The City of Chicago is a home-rule unit of government under Article VII, Section 6(a) of the 1970 Constitution of the State of Illinois and, as such, may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs; and
WHEREAS, Promoting the welfare of those who work within the City's borders plainly meets this criterion; and
WHEREAS, Employees in every industry occasionally require time away from the workplace to tend to their own health or the health of family members. Parents and guardians without paid sick days 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 receive no paid sick leave;
and
WHEREAS, Paid sick leave has a positive effect on the health of not only employees and their family members, but also the health of fellow workers and the public at large. The most comprehensive 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 lack paid sick leave are more than twice as likely as parents who have paid sick leave to send a sick child to school or daycare, and five times more likely to take 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, Paid sick leave reduces health care expenditures by promoting access to primary and preventive care. Nationally, providing all workers with paid sick leave would result in $1.1 billion in annual savings in hospital emergency department costs; and
WHEREAS, Many employers recognize that a healthy workforce is more productive and that paid sick leave retains valued empl...
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