Launch of sick leave policy plotted
Council action comes as threats loom over its survival
With the threat of legislative action and court scrutiny looming, a City Council committee on Wednesday nevertheless started charting a course toward implementing its controversial paid sick leave policy.
Councilman Manny Peláez, chair of the ad-hoc Committee on Paid Sick Leave, said the group will try to ensure the policy can begin working on schedule in August. While it technically took effect Jan. 1, enforcement doesn’t begin until summer.
But the committee’s actions could be rendered moot if the Legislature — as expected — prohibits such policies or the Supreme Court of Texas strikes them down as unconstitutional.
In creating the committee, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the city will be prepared “in the event that doesn’t happen.”
“This committee’s job is to recommend necessary modifications to the existing ordinance to give it effect,” Peláez said. “Now, what happens in Austin? Totally out of our control. What happens at the Supreme Court level? Totally out of control. So I’ve learned that you can pull your hair out in grief out of all those things you can’t control, but in the end all that leaves you is bald.”
Peláez, himself a labor attorney, made clear that he does not think the committee’s task is to renew the debate regarding the merits of the paid sick leave, or to change the spirit of the ordinance council passed.
“The memo that was turned in to us by the mayor … is very clear,” Peláez said. “It is a commission empaneled for the purpose of delivering an enforceable ordinance. That’s it. It doesn’t say an ordinance that is more palatable to some and less palatable to others. All it says is implementation and enforceability.”
The business community bitterly opposed the ordinance and has called on the city to repeal it.
Nirenberg has said he doesn’t think the city should be dictating a policy, even if he believes paid sick leave is good for businesses and workers. He supported the ordinance when it passed.
City Council adopted the policy last August after a group of activists led by the Texas Organizing Project collected the requisite signatures to place it on the November ballot. The council’s action was seen as a defensive measure. Most council members opposed three ballot measures pushed by the fire union, and city leaders didn’t want confusion in encouraging residents to vote “no” on the first three refer-
endums and “yes” on the fourth.
Faced with that specter, the city adopted the paid sick leave ordinance outright so it no longer had to go on the ballot.
As the policy stands now, it requires private employers with 15 or fewer employees to provide them with at least six days of paid time off a year. Larger businesses would have to provide at least eight days, and small businesses with less than five employees are off the hook until August 2021.
Employees would accrue an hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours of work.
Employers who violate the ordinance could face a $500 fine. Peláez pointed out the city hasn’t allocated any money toward enforcement strategies.
That is one aspect the committee will now re-examine.
Another is the ambiguity of workers who pass through San Antonio. Peláez said the ordinance would apparently apply to truck drivers who sit in traffic in the city.
State lawmakers appear bent on nullifying the ordinance. Gov. Greg Abbott has backed a bill that would kill the policy and block any future ones like it.
Advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Texans have said that bill could also threaten nondiscrimination ordinances.
Assistant San Antonio City Manager Carlos Contreras told the committee Wednesday that staff is confident the bill wouldn’t undo San Antonio’s nondiscrimination policy.
Paid sick leave is also facing a challenge in the courts. A state appeals court found Austin’s paid sick leave policy unconstitutional in November. City staff in San Antonio have noted that court doesn’t have jurisdiction here, but the policy could be jeopardized if the Supreme Court of Texas affirms the decision.
The ad hoc committee named a commission of stakeholders that will now “take a deep dive” into San Antonio’s ordinance and others across the country. Its chair is attorney Danielle Hargrove, the former in-house counsel to CPS Energy.