Rick Scott, Governor of Florida, blocks sick time vote!

[Baitball Blogger]

Scott blocks paid sick-time vote in Orange, statewide

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill Friday that would block local governments from enacting mandatory paid-sick-time measures, such as the one pending in Orange County.

The Republican governor sided with Walt Disney World, Darden Restaurants, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and a broad array of powerful business interests that argued the ban was needed to avoid a patchwork of local employment rules for companies.

"This bill fosters statewide uniformity, consistency and predictability in Florida's employer-employee relationships," Scott said in a statement. "These fundamental elements are essential to ensuring a business-friendly environment that supports job creation.

Labor and progressive groups have made recent pushes for mandatory paid sick time in Orange and Miami-Dade counties to help out lower-paid workers who don't often get that benefit. Businesses mostly opposed to the idea say it overreaches into a company's affairs and should be left to the market.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-scott-signs-local-paid-sick-time-ban-20130614,0,6200216.story

[Riley18]

1. Paid sick time protects the workers and customers.

After he shut down the bill he flew off to France. Ironic that France has sick leave policies in place.

[DirkGently]

2. We knew he would. Just waited for the press to die down slightly.

At least Rick Scott is consistently, reliably completely evil. Easier to predict.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. I wonder if there is any way to challenge him on a Constitutional basis?

[DirkGently]

4. Federal labor standards can be enacted.

I don't know that there's any clear argument that you can't deny workers paid sick leave, but we can enact national legislation on the basis of something like health standards.

There has in fact been a paid sick leave law floating around at the national level for years. It's failure to be implemented is one reason it's been take to the local level.

The arrogance that occurred with the actions of the Orange County Commission, in league with the Chamber of Commerce and Florida business interests, in which a 50,000 person initiative, explicitly enabled under the Orange County Charter, was illegally stymied and stalled, despite a court order to the contrary, is jaw-dropping.

Why it would be okay, for one second, to tell a food server or hotel worker or healthcare or nursing home worker they must report to work ILL, I cannot fathom.

But Disney, Darden, and Mears are so opposed to anyone preventing that they wrote their own law to make sure it continues.

And they have, for the moment, gotten away with it.

[djean111]

7. I think it is not so much that they expect workers to show up when ill, they can usually have

the other workers fill in. Costs them less when workers call in sick, because they just spread the work around.
They just resent having to pay the money, and that "free market" thing means they expect workers to compete for jobs even though they cannot support themselves with the wages.
We are, inexorably, it seems, heading for the day when workers may ALL need to stand on a street corner every morning, hoping to get picked.

[DirkGently]

8. They are demanding the power to pressure sick workers

to come in, or risk losing the job. Whether they lose money or not may not be the issue. It's power, essentially over life and death, that some employers apparently crave.

But the result is we have people coughing up blood while tending to elderly sick people. Sneezing while preparing food. Fighting a virus and turning down your sheets.

It is a worker protection issue. But it's also a very clear cut public health issue, which is where I think the legislation should go.

[davidn3600]

5. I've never understood this mentality...

I guess employers would rather a virus spread through the whole workforce, effecting productivity, than to pay one person to sit at home for a day.

[djean111]

6. Maybe he is not running again?

Or feels he has the election fixed already.

[csziggy]

9. In a state where the government offers comp time but does allow using it

I know more than one person who gets comp time rather than being paid for overtime. Theoretically, they can use that comp time to take time off but I have never known this to be true.

One person had over 6 months of accumulated comp time, a month of sick leave, and three months of vacation time when she was due to have her baby. She planned to use all that accumulated time to stay home with her new born, then return back to work a year or so later. She was only allowed to use her sick leave, then was required to work at least part time or be fired. She was not even given the option of being able to go back into a different position either with the same department or a different one at the end of the year. The only concession that was made was that she was allowed to work from home three days of the week.

What really put the cap on it was that because she had accumulated so much vacation and comp time, past the limits allowed by her department, she lost MONTHS worth of time off at the end of the year and was not compensated for it. She had willingly worked extra time and not taken vacation during her pregnancy to accumulate time so she could stay home - and no one in her department told her until after she had her baby that she would not be allowed to use it and that she would lose it.

I've seen this done to state workers at various levels (hourly and salaried) for decades, ever since Florida instituted comp time. It is a complete scam and workers should not have to put up with it.