Miami-Dade County Commissioner Barbara Jordan is going to introduce an ordinance on Tuesday mandating earned sick pay for workers in the county.
According to Jordan's office, this proposed law follows "the delivery of over 4,000 postcards from Miami-Dade voters who signed their names in support of Earned Sick Time for Miami workers."
The groups behind this law where the same that helped get a law passed in Miami-Dade that prohibits employers from withholding earned wages from their employees. It is known as the wage theft ordinance.
Jordan's office says in a press release that if the ordinance passes, it will be a big help for the local economy as well as the workers.
As numerous studies show the positive impact that paid sick days have on businesses and the economy, cities and state have been adopting paid sick days policies to help improve public health and bolster the economic recovery over the past year. Economists say job retention polices like paid sick days help reduce unemployment and strengthen economic recovery. San Francisco, which has had a paid sick days law for four years, was rated by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2011 as one of the top cities in the world in which to do business, and more than two in three San Francisco businesses support the local law with six in seven reporting no negative impact on profitability.
Sick pay laws also have an interesting recent history here in Florida.
This year, political groups in the Orlando area tried to get an earned sick pay measure on the November ballot for approval by the county.
The group was able to get the thousands of signatures they needed on the ballot, but the county commissioners there -- as well as some powerful big businesses in Orlando-- thwarted their efforts.
People who worked on that Orlando campaign, though, say earned sick pay is much more likely to pass in Miami-Dade.
