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Portland City Council Votes Down Paid Sick Leave Bill


Monday evening, the Portland City Council voted down a proposed paid sick leave ordinance that would have affected over 19,000 workers in the city.  (Bear in mind, this is Portland, Maine we are talking about...not Portland, Oregon.)  Under the proposal, most workers in Portland would earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked (with a maximum 40 hours or 5 days of paid sick time being able to be accrued.)  Notably, this paid sick leave ordinance would have applied to full time, part time, seasonal, and per diem workers.

As with many fights over paid leave bills and ordinances, opponents argued that it would place an undue burden on smaller employers in Portland.  (There was apparently a carve out, however, for businesses with fewer than 10 employees.)  However, supporters of the ordinance pointed out that the ordinance was necessary to provide a "safety net" for sick workers to take time off work without risking losing additional pay.

While the vote was close, 5 - 4 against passage, something tells me this is not the last attempt made to pass a paid sick leave ordinance for workers in the city.  (After all, the Portland City Council has been debating a paid sick leave ordinance for nearly 18 months now.)  However, with a bill currently working its way through the Maine Legislature that would provide workers in the state with the ability to earn up to 40 hours of paid leave per year (and also prohibit local municipalities from creating their own paid leave laws), this might be a situation where even if a new paid sick leave ordinance is introduced in the Portland City Council, it will simply be too late to do anything.


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