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Public Policy Issue Briefs
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Issue: Paid Sick Leave
Overview: The National Restaurant Association supports employer efforts to provide flexible, voluntary leave benefits for their workforces.
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Background
Some policymakers say employers should be required to grant employees minimum amounts of paid sick leave. They argue that existing private-sector leave policies are not sufficient to protect employees. Proposals have been introduced at both the federal and state levels to mandate paid leave.
The "Healthy Families Act" which has been reintroduced in Congress by Senator Ted Kennedy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, for example, would require businesses to provide one (1) hour of paid sick leave to employees for every 30 hours worked - both full and part-time employees would be eligible to accumulate up to 56 hours of paid sick leave per year. A separate measure would have required employers to provide their employees with six weeks of paid family and medical leave to care for themselves and family members.
Status
: The House Education & Labor Committee's Workforce Protections Subcomittee recently held a hearing on paid leave legislation but took no action. However, the issue is expected to intensify at the federal level this year.
Why Congress Should Reject Mandated Paid Leave
• Mandates hit small businesses especially hard. Restaurants earn roughly four cents in profit on every $1 in sales. These are tight margins. Mandatory paid benefits that increase small-business costs would have to be recouped elsewhere, perhaps through reduced wages or fewer paid benefits in other areas. In cases where employees take leave with little or no notice, employers may even face double payments—pay for both the person taking sick leave and for the person called in to cover the shift.
• Paid-leave mandates take away flexibility. The cost to a business for mandatory paid sick leave has to be recouped somewhere. Restaurants typically offer flexible work schedules and hours that best meet the needs of their workplace and their employees. Many also offer sick leave through a paid-time-off benefit structure. A one-size-fits-all paid sick-leave mandate threatens these employee benefits.
• Congress needs to straighten out the FMLA before adding new mandates. Currently, employees are able to take FMLA leave on little to no notice. This is presents challenges to a restaurant and its employees who must cover in their absence. In a February 2008 survey of registered voters, more than two-thirds of Americans said something should be done about the current misuse of intermittent leave, which is taken in small increments like days or even hours and usually without prior notice.
The National Coalition to Protect Family Leave, of which NRA is a member, recently issued a press release urging members of Congress to reject the Health Families Act (S.1152/H.R. 2460). In recent months, supporters of the Healthy Families Act have been making a grassroots push for additional cosponsors of the legislation, so it is important for the employer community to highlight our strong concerns with this bill. NRA continues to share out concerns with lawmakers on these bills however, there is no known timetable for consideration.
Questions?
Contact Tim Ehlert at (202) 331-5938 or tehlert@restaurant.org.
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