All Dallas employers would have to provide paid sick leave for employees under an ordinance approved Wednesday by the City Council.

Clergy members, labor and community organizations had pushed for the measure — primarily aimed at service jobs — as a way to help low-income working families who don’t have the time-off benefits enjoyed by many higher-income workers.

Dallas will join Austin and San Antonio as the only major Texas cities to require sick leave if the ordinance stands. But that’s a big if, because the Legislature is weighing whether to kill such local mandates, which some groups say would be overly burdensome to businesses.

The ordinance is set to go into effect Aug. 1 for businesses with 15 or more employees. Smaller businesses are to have until Aug. 1, 2021.

But before the ordinance’s passage on a 10-4 vote, Mayor Mike Rawlings offered a caution to those in attendance.

“I hope no one thinks that since we voted on this, that things are going to change in August,” Rawlings said.

How it works

The ordinance, which adds a new chapter to City Code, will require all businesses — for-profit and nonprofit — to provide paid sick leave if they don’t already do so. Employees will earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.

Employees can use the time to tend to family members or themselves for “physical or mental illness, injury, stalking, domestic abuse, sexual assault or needed preventative care,” the ordinance read.

For businesses with more than 15 employees, each worker would have a yearly cap of 64 hours of earned sick time. For smaller businesses, the threshold would be 48 hours, though employees would be allowed to carry over hours from year to year.

People celebrated after Wednesday's Dallas City Council vote to require employers to offer paid sick leave. (Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

Employers found in violation could be fined up to $500.

The ordinance's effects could be significant. An Institute for Women's Policy Research study from 2018 estimated that over 301,000 people — about 41 percent of Dallas workers — lacked paid sick time.

But Dallas can't look to Austin and San Antonio to see the effects just yet. While Austin's measure passed in February 2018, it has been blocked by the courts. And in November, Texas' 3rd Court of Appeals ruled that the effort conflicted with the state's minimum-wage law. San Antonio's law, which passed in August, hasn't gone into effect, either.

'Political rally'

The council vote came after a coalition of groups had tried to put a paid sick leave proposition on last November's general election ballot but had failed to get enough signatures to do so.

The same groups — including Dallas AFL-CIO, Texas Organizing Project, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes and Faith in Texas — pushed for the direct City Council action.

Council member Philip Kingston and four of his colleagues had put the ordinance on the agenda for Wednesday — the council’s final agenda meeting before the May 4 municipal election. They used a method called a five-signature memo that allows a group of council members to bypass the mayor and city manager.

The tactic drew criticism from several council members, including Rawlings and Tennell Atkins.

While he said didn’t disagree with the ordinance’s spirit, Rawlings said the issue needed more scrutiny. Normally, the city staff can vet items, brief committees about them and receive comment from council members and the public before a final vote.

1 / 3Ananna Anu carried a sign calling for paid sick time when members of Democratic Socialists of America joined a Black Clergy Rally at City Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church in Dallas this week. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor) 2 / 3Prayer went on throughout the Black Clergy Rally at City Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church in Dallas, Texas on Tuesday, April 23, 2019. Several groups came together at the rally in support of the city councils upcoming vote on paid sick leave for Dallas employees. (Lawrence Jenkins/Special Contributor)(Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor) 3 / 3Reverend Edwin Robinson speaks at the Black Clergy Rally at City Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church in Dallas, Texas on Tuesday, April 23, 2019. Several groups came together at the rally in support of the city councils upcoming vote on paid sick leave for Dallas employees. (Lawrence Jenkins/Special Contributor)(Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)

For example, the council’s vote on a controversial redo of the Citizens Police Review Board came after months of intense scrutiny and community input.

“God’s in the details in this, guys,” Rawlings said.

The mayor also suggested that the vote was timed, amid election season and early voting, for cynical reasons — “so that we can have a political rally,” he said.

Hurdles ahead

The mayor joined council members Lee Kleinman, Adam McGough and Jennifer Staubach Gates in voting against the effort.

Kleinman was the most vocal in his opposition, saying the new ordinance “hurts small entrepreneurs.”

Without enforcement, Kleinman said, the ordinance was probably toothless. He noted that nobody has been cited for violating the city’s rest break ordinance, which passed in December 2015 behind a push from the Workers Defense Project — which also advocated strongly for paid sick leave.

Before the vote, the Dallas Regional Chamber and the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce sent letters to council members to express concerns about how the ordinance would affect businesses.

Some GOP lawmakers have also made axing local sick leave ordinances a priority. But their bills have been jammed up this year.

First, unions and municipalities came out hard against the GOP efforts, saying the bills would hurt workers and infringe on local control. Then LGBT rights groups and big businesses such as American Airlines and Facebook added their opposition to a Senate bill they said would inadvertently also imperil local nondiscrimination ordinances.

Two weeks ago, the state Senate approved legislation with the best chance to reach the governor’s desk. But the House has yet to debate the legislation, and with just more than a month until the Legislative session wraps up, the clock is ticking.

The Rev. Edwin Robinson, an organizer among black clergy members in Dallas, urged the council to vote for the measure despite the state’s potential nullification.

“If the state Legislature would like to take away earned sick time after you all pass it today for 300,000 people, let them do it,” he said. “But you all go on record to say that you have the moral courage to stand up for your people.”

The Rev. Edwin Robinson urged the council to vote for the measure despite potential nullification of the measure by the state. (2018 File Photo / Staff )

'Politics is political'

While Atkins said he was “very disappointed” by the process, he recounted how his mother, Eula Mae, had worked as a cook for her adult life and never received sick days or paid leave. She died over a decade ago of complications from diabetes.

“I’d be ashamed of myself, and ashamed [given] where I came from to say I cannot support this,” Atkins said.

Council member Rickey Callahan tried to delay the vote, offering a motion that would have pushed the issue to June.

“Wouldn’t it be more intelligent to ... try to find a way to get business and labor on the same page and try to make this work for everybody?” he said.

Council members Omar Narvaez and Scott Griggs — who had joined Adam Medrano and Kevin Felder with signatures on the five-person memo — offered impassioned pleas against delaying the vote.

“This has taken a long time to get here today, and people deserve a vote on this,” said Griggs, who is running for mayor. “This vote to delay this is a vote to deny this.”

When Callahan’s motion failed, McGough offered a substitute that would not have required paid sick leave. Instead, it would have created a reporting system and repository where bad employers could be publicly shamed for not offering paid sick leave.

As McGough handed out copies of his amendment, Kingston took the sheet of paper, tore it in half in front of McGough and threw it on the floor.

1 / 3Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston rips up a copy of an amendment proposed by council colleague Adam McGough (right).(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3Dallas City council member Scott Griggs speaks during a meeting at Dallas City Hall in Dallas on Wednesday, April 23, 2019. The city council voted Wednesday to mandate Dallas businesses within the city limits to provide earned paid sick time to employees. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3Dallas City council member Philip T. Kingston rushes over to talk to Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings after ripping up a copy of an amendment proposed by Dallas City council member B. Adam McGough after Rawlings told him during a meeting at Dallas City Hall in Dallas on Wednesday, April 23, 2019. The city council voted Wednesday to mandate Dallas businesses within the city limits to provide earned paid sick time to employees. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

After the vote, Robinson said that “all those what-ifs" discussed by council members were well-founded.

“They’re correct that there were council people who were politically motivated to put this on the agenda at this time,” Robinson said. “But here’s my thing: Politics is political. ... And if candidates are willing to put something that’s going to be helpful for the people ... I’m down for it.”

Staff writer Lauren McGaughy contributed to this report.