Judge to weigh sick-leave delay today
Policy says it’s to go into effect Aug. 1, but deal reached in lawsuit put it back to Dec. 1
A Bexar County judge is expected to decide today whether to accept a deal to delay San Antonio's paid sick leave policy over the objections of several city leaders, including Mayor Ron Nirenberg.
City attorneys and Ricardo Cedillo, the lawyer representing a dozen businesses and groups challenging the law, will ask the judge to sign off on an agreement to postpone the policy until Dec. 1.
The ordinance, which requires employers to give their workers a minimum amount of paid sick leave, states it takes effect Aug. 1.
Attorneys for the Texas Organizing Project, MOVE Texas and Marilyn Washington, a home care provider without paid sick leave, intervened against the lawsuit last week.
At today’s hearing, they will launch a defense of the law and ask the judge to deny the deal. They’ll argue the businesses won’t be harmed enough to warrant a delay.
The hearing begins at 8:30 a.m. in state district court.
There are three motions before the judge. The first is whether to accept the city and businesses’ deal to delay the ordinance.
If that is rejected, the judge will then consider a request from Cedillo to remove TOP and MOVE Texas from the case and whether to grant an injunction to block the ordinance from taking effect Aug. 1.
If the delay agreement is accepted, the other two motions won’t be heard.
Cedillo had filed the motion to block the policy before reaching the deal with city attorneys. He alleged in the lawsuit that the ordinance violates Texas’ minimum wage law by forcing employers to provide benefits above those stipulated in the statute.
That argument stems from a ruling last year by the Third Court of Appeals in Austin, which declared city’s ordinance unconstitutional for that reason.
The appeals court found the
Austin ordinance raised the minimum wage by requiring employers to pay workers the same amount of money for less hours worked, effectively raising the rate they were paid. The state statute forbids local governments from raising the minimum wage.
City attorneys for San Antonio, concerned that the nearly identical ordinance here would suffer the same fate, have opted for a delay.
They hope the postponement will give the City Council and the paid sick leave commission, a 13member group of stakeholders reviewing the ordinance, time to amend the law over the next four months.
Nirenberg and three City Council members — Roberto Treviño, Jada AndrewsSullivan and Ana Sandoval — have publicly said they don’t support the city attorney’s strategy to delay the law, but it doesn’t appear they can do anything about it.
The mayor doesn’t have the authority under San Antonio’s council-manager government to unilaterally direct the city attorney to change course.
A council majority of six members would be needed if the elected officials wanted to intercede in staff’s plans.
Four other council members — Adriana Rocha Garcia, Manny Peláez, John Courage and Clayton Perry — have told the San Antonio Express-News they don’t oppose the delay.
The remaining three — Rebecca Viagran, Shirley Gonzales and Melissa Cabello Havrda — didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
The council is on break during July as city staffers work on the San Antonio budget.
City Attorney Andy Segovia said making changes to the law would allow San Antonio to distinguish itself from the case in Austin. While the appeals court there doesn’t have jurisdiction over San Antonio, the case here involves nearly identical ordinances and arguments.
“What we could do is make it clearer in the ordinance that benefits aren’t equal to wages,” Segovia said, referring to the Austin court’s finding. “That’s part of what the commission is looking at — and we’re working with the commission — is to make it clearer, whether through language and through substance, that the benefit isn’t equal to wages.”
“I think there’s a way to do it,” he added. “It would put us in a better position to defend the ordinance if we made those changes.”