Democrats to insist on keeping municipal workers in program
Putting them at odds with Gov. Charlie Baker and a municipal trade group, House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka intend to preserve eligibility for municipal employees in an emergency COVID-19 sick leave program that the Legislature is working to finalize and return to the governor’s desk.
Baker has proposed sev- eral amendments to the sick leave program that the Legislature tried to include in a larger unemployment tax relief package, most of which the governor signed off on last Friday.
Many of the recommended changes remain under review, but Democratic legislative leadership said late Wednesday they do not intend to go along with Baker’s proposal to change employee eligibility for the leave program.
One of the governor’s amendments would exclude municipal workers, including teachers, public works employees, police and others. The administration said the change would align COVID-19 sick leave with the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program, which allows cities and towns to opt in instead. Democratic leaders on Beacon Hill told the News Service that municipal employees deserve to take advantage of the program, which would provide up to five days of paid time off for full-time employees who are sick with COVID19, isolating, taking time off to get vaccinated or caring for a family member ill with the virus.
“Our municipal employees, including our teachers and first responders, have been essential to the state’s COVID-19 response. We were disappointed to see Governor Baker’s amendment to exclude them from paid sick leave benefits,” Mariano and Spilka told the News Service in response to questions about the program.
“The House and the Senate continue to believe that paid sick leave will protect our communities by preventing the further spread of COVID-19, and our municipal employees deserve the same access to it as other workers. We are committed to returning this legislation back to the Governor’s desk with municipal employees included,” the Democratic leaders said.
The Baker administration defended the amendment, arguing that cities and towns tend to have
“highly unionized” employees with strong leave protections in place already, and many can access federal funds to implement their own leave programs that could align with the state and federal leave guarantees.
The recommendation from the governor’s office was also made to the Legislature with the blessing of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. “When the Governor’s office consulted with us on the bill, we shared that our preference was that the adoption of expanded leave benefits should be at the option of municipalities, as cities and towns already have generous sick leave policies in place, compared to the private sector, which is where gaps exist for workers,” MMA Executive Director Geoff Beckwith said.
But unions, including the Massachusetts Teachers Association, criticized the decision to carve municipalities out of the program that would be offered to other public employees who work for the state, as well as private-sector workers.
“The Governor’s proposed amendments would deny Emergency Paid Sick Time benefits to municipal employees — workers who are on the frontlines of the pandemic response and deserve the same protections as private-sector workers. That’s unacceptable,” the Raise Up coalition said after Baker returned that portion of the bill to the Legislature last week.
The coalition of labor, faith and community groups includes the MTA, which has been feuding with the Baker administration over vaccinations and the governor’s plan to return most students to inperson learning this month.
Raise Up said the new state COVID-19 leave program would fill a gap that existed for many workers between the state’s earned sick time law and the federal COVID-19 leave program that expired in December, but did not cover as many as 1.8 million workers in Massachusetts, including employees of large companies with more than 500 workers.
The paid family and medical leave law in Massachusetts that took effect on Jan. 1 also has a oneweek waiting period to receive benefits, according to the coalition, exposing low-income workers who can’t afford to miss a week of pay due to illness.
“Each additional day that goes by without Emergency Paid Sick Time legislation in place means that more workers will go to work even when they might be infectious, because they can’t afford not to get paid. Many essential frontline workers need paid sick time so they can recover from the side effects of the COVID vaccine,” the Raise Up coalition said.
House and Senate leaders are continuing to review other aspects of the governor’s amendment, and have not set a date for the Legislature to vote again on the legislation, though given the schedule it’s unlikely that would happen until at least next week.