City of Austin Considering Forced 'paid sick leave' for Businesses (Round Rock: landscaping, wages)

[Jimmyp25]

Whoa. Dodged a bullet here. My business I own is literally a 1/2 away from Austin city limits.


As Council considers 'paid sick leave' for businesses, City of Austin struggling with own policy - Story | KTBC

[Austin97]

it passed..

[m1a1mg]

The state will shoot it down next legislative session.

[Jimmyp25]

My business is in pflugerville so I’m not really worried but what I am worried about is businesses leaving Austin to nearby towns and driving up the prices for office space . I don’t think companies that have 1 or two employees should force paid sick leave . Hopefully it gets shot down like you said .

[ashbeeigh]

I wonder if some businesses will just pay the $500 fine and call it a day? That's not a big fine, unless it's per employee. Confession, I haven't read anything about the exact wording of the law since it passed late last night.

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

What businesses are they talking about?

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

What businesses are they talking about?

OVERNIGHT: Austin becomes the 1st city in Texas to mandate paid sick leave

The Austin City Council voted early Friday to make paid sick leave a mandatory requirement for all non-government employers, making Austin the first city in Texas to regulate sick leave.

[Westerner92]

If you can't afford a 3.33% uptick in labor costs, your business model sucks. Sick employees are for sure 3.33% less productive when they have to come in. I'd be willing to wager that the increase in productivity from increased morale will offset the costs, but because that sort of thing is hard to quantify on a spreadsheet, many business owners would never go for it. Hell, lower their wages by 3.33% and do the budgeting for the employees. Pass the cost onto the consumers; I know I'd be willing to pay a few cents more to make sure my food handlers weren't sick.

I'm failing to see how this is controversial, but I imagine the state government will manage to quash local governance like they're wont to do.

[ScoPro]

Is it still a requirement for food handler applicants to take a physical prior to being employed in a restaurant or grocery store?

[Trainwreck20]

The real issue isn't whether employees are given sick leave or not; the problem gets to be the extra bureaucracy and the loss of flexibility for employers of various sizes to deal with their problems individually.

My company years ago combined sick and vacation into one pool of 'personal' leave. Will they be forced to separate it out? In which case I will essentially lose vacation time and gain sick time that I don't need. When I was at the state, there was a group of people that were out on sick leave the day or so after their sick leave was granted each month. As a waiter, I could call in sick, of course, but my hourly pay was $2.01 an hour anyway. The real cost was lost tips. Is a restaurant going to have assume a lost tip amount and pay the waiters? Otherwise, it is just pointless for restaurants.

And as mentioned above, the cost will be taken out of employees pay, most likely in the form of raises not granted over the next few years.

Anyway, the premise is good but I suspect that some segments of the business community will choose to 'relocate' out of Austin or avoid Austin proper and go to the suburbs. I mean, if I run a landscaping company that does work in Austin, is there any reason my 'office' can't be in Round Rock. My employees never need to come to the office and can live wherever they want.