Letters and emails surrounding a proposed paid sick-leave mandate that would apply to most employers in St. Paul continue to pour into City Hall. A public hearing on the ordinance is scheduled before the St. Paul City Council on Aug. 17, with a final vote Aug. 24.

The organization MomsRising.org submitted 82 signatures in favor of the proposal, many but not all of them from St. Paul residents.

“I can tell you how important sick time was to me as a single mother working at the University in the 1980s and ’90s,” said Erie Street resident Helen Hunter, in a written statement accompanying the petition. “I had two children and no family living close enough to take care of them when they got sick. I used to think everyone had paid sick time, because everyone needs it. Please pass the St. Paul earned sick time ordinance. You will be doing a great deal of continuing good!”

Dated Aug. 3, a two-page letter from Union Pacific Railroad to the city attorney’s office notes that Congress passed the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, which provides up to 26 weeks of sickness benefits for railroad workers. Related Articles After man sentenced to 40 years in St. Paul murder, courthouse locked down and shots fired nearby

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As a result, according to Union Pacific, the company should be exempt from St. Paul’s proposed sick time rules. The letter highlights legal cases where the railroad has prevailed against both the city of Seattle and the state of Massachusetts in court.

A series of colleges have also sought to exempt their part-time student workers, and other possible amendments are mounting.

The ordinance, as currently drafted, would require St. Paul employers of all sizes to offer an hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked.

Employees would be able to “bank,” or accumulate, 48 hours of earned sick time per year or 80 hours total. And the paid time off would apply in the event the employee has to take care of a sick family member or faces a situation such as domestic abuse or stalking.

“As a small business owner, I agree with the spirit of this ordinance and would love to be able to provide these benefits for my employees but am greatly concerned over where to find the resources to do so,” said Julie McCormick, the owner of a community clinic, in a June 28 email. “We have six employees and have to consider not just paying the time off, but also the lost revenue when they are not present.”

McCormick added: “I work in a small clinic that gets most of our reimbursement from medical insurance companies, and while I would pass on the expense by raising our rates, the insurance companies do not negotiate with businesses as small as mine. … I am not sure what the answer is, but question how a business such as mine will negotiate these additional costs. I love St. Paul and have chosen to live here, raise my children here, and own a business here. I hope to be able to keep my business in this city.”

St. Paul resident Tom Dietsche said he supported the goals of the ordinance but thinks it should be enacted on the state — rather than municipal — level.

“If it’s done piecemeal, city by city, and the rules are different, it’s going to make it really hard on employers. A lot of them use standard payroll software, and as a software developer myself … what do you do if a guy worked last week in Minneapolis, and this week he’s in St. Paul?”

In a letter dated Aug. 3, the St. Paul Business Review Council asked the city council to consider a series of amendments proposed by the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber asked that a provision allowing workers to accumulate up to 80 hours of earned sick leave be reduced to 48 hours, and that both sick and “safe” time taken in the event of a domestic assault be referred to simply as “paid time off,” in part for reasons of worker privacy.

The chamber also asked that the ordinance take effect on Jan. 1, 2018, instead of July 1, 2017, as currently proposed.

Other points likely to be debated include whether the ordinance should respect or overrule existing labor agreements, and whether employees should be awarded attorney’s fees if they sue their employer for violating the ordinance and win.

The latter provision, known as a “private right of action,” has drawn opposition from some members of the Metro Independent Business Alliance. Worried about attorneys trolling for clients, the council recently voted to remove the private right of action from the ordinance proposal, but it could yet be reinstated.

“This morning I received several emails from members who are worried about the Private Right Of Action aspect,” said alliance director Mary Hamel, in an Aug. 9 email to a reporter. “Perhaps even more troubling are the many small business owners who are completely out of the loop, who don’t even know that this change is on the horizon and for whom this will be an administrative burden.”

On Aug. 8, small business owners associated with yet another business network, the Main Street Alliance of Minnesota, gathered to voice their support for the ordinance.

The Main Street Alliance released a map of 40 St. Paul shops that back paid time off or earned sick leave. Anti-poverty advocates from ISAIAH and CTUL, the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha, a janitorial and fast food workers union, held a similar event on Aug. 9.

“Anyone who has had a kid in day care has gotten a call ‘you have to pick your kid up.’ It’s not a choice,” said St. Paul City Council President Russ Stark, at the Aug. 8 speak-out.