Sick-leave measure off ballot in Ohio

By MARC KOVAC

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

COLUMBUS — In a surprise move, backers of a state law requiring employers to provide paid sick time off to workers agreed to remove the issue from the November ballot.

Proponents, buoyed by a potential federal sick day leave law supported by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, told reporters Thursday they wanted to void “a shrill and vitriolic ballot campaign marred by misinformation and disinformation.”

“There’s no question that we were about to get into a very divisive and unproductive debate and, for lack of a better word, struggle, with folks that support the coalition and the business community,” said Becky Williams, president of the Service Employees International Union district that covers Ohio.

The announcement came one day before the deadline for proponents to remove the issue from the statewide ballot. Kevin Kidder, a spokesman for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, confirmed the office had received the letter, the only statutory obligation required by proponents to end their election drive.

The decision was supported by Gov. Ted Strickland, who had voiced his opposition to the ballot issue as written.

The move ended the Ohio Paid Sick Days campaign’s initiated legislation, called the Ohio Healthy Families Act, that would have required businesses with 25 or more workers to allow full-time employees to earn seven paid sick days per year. According to proponents, 2.2 million Ohio workers are not able to take paid sick days, exposing their co-workers and the public to potential illnesses.

Some 3.5 million can’t take paid days to care for family members who are sick or who need physician care. But opponents called the measure an “anti-job creation proposal” that would burden employers with additional regulations and mandates, increase their costs and restrict companies’ flexibility in their employee benefit plans.

State Rep. Robert F. Hagan of Youngstown, an early supporter of the proposal, agreed with the decision to pull it from the November ballot.

After giving his support, Hagan, D-60th, said he heard from local business owners in his district who told him it would hurt their companies if passed.

Hagan added the sick-leave issue is best handled by the federal government and not individual states.

In polling in recent months, a majority of Ohioans appeared to support paid sick days, and opponents, including Strickland, acknowledged the issue likely would have passed in November. The governor’s office actively sought a compromise between the issue proponents and opponents, with hopes of keeping it off the ballot. But those efforts failed, and late last month the administration announced discussions involving the business community and the union had ended without a viable solution all sides could accept.

Williams said the union had already spent an estimated $1.7 million in its efforts to see the ballot issue passed.