CHICAGO – When Joan Van is sick, she doesn’t get paid.
Restaurant server in the East St. Louis area.
“You can’t let your kids see you break down because you’re tired and worn out because you have to keep pushing. Must. And if you don’t, then who will?” she said.
She may not need much longer. Broad paid time off legislation requiring Illinois employers to give workers time off based on hours worked, to be used for any reason, is poised for action by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who said he would sign it.
The paid vacation requirement is rare in the US – only Maine and Nevada have similar laws – though common in other industrialized countries.
Fourteen states and Washington, DC, require employers to provide paid sick leave through similar laws, though employees can only use it for health-related matters. What sets the new Illinois legislation apart is that workers will not have to explain the reason for their absence as long as they provide notice in accordance with reasonable employer standards.
Maine and Nevada also allow workers to decide how to use their time, but significant exceptions apply. Maine’s earned paid leave law applies only to employers with more than 10 employees, and Nevada exempts businesses with fewer than 50. Illinois’ will reach almost all employees and has no limit based on business size.
Seasonal workers such as lifeguards would be exempt, as would federal employees or college students working part-time and temporary jobs for their university.
The legislation will come into force on 1 January 2024. Employees will accrue one hour of paid time off for every 40 hours worked up to 40 hours in total, although the employer can offer more. Employees can start using the time after they have worked for 90 days.
“Working families face enough challenges without the worry of losing a paycheck when life gets in the way,” Pritzker said Jan. 11, when the bill passed both chambers.
Ordinances in Cook County and Chicago already require employers to provide paid sick leave, and workers in those places will continue to be covered by existing laws rather than the new bill.
Johnae Strong, an administrative worker at a small media company in Chicago, said the paid sick time helps her care for her two children, a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old. But extending the time to use it for whatever reason would be helpful.
“Life happens,” she said, adding that she hopes Chicago will update its law to be more flexible, like the state bill.
The Chicago and Cook County ordinances served as pilot programs for statewide legislation and calmed critics who predicted mass business closings that never materialized, said Sarah Labadie, director of advocacy and policy at Women Employed, a nonprofit that has fought for paid leave since from 2008 and helped implement the legislation.
“Obviously we’ve had some weird things happen during the pandemic, but pre-pandemic it wasn’t like that. Chicago was a thriving economic engine,” she said.
Peoria Democrat Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth sponsored the bill, which she said would “help lift up working families” and “immediately help people.”
House Republican Leader-elect Tony McCombie said mandated benefits could have a “detrimental effect” on small businesses and nonprofits “in an already business-unfriendly climate.”
“We all want a great work environment with an equal work/life balance,” she said in an emailed statement. “However, Senate Bill 208 failed to address the concerns of those who provide that work environment.”
For Leslie Allison-Seei, who runs a lottery promotion and administration company with her husband in DuPage County, taking care of their three full-time employees is a priority, but it’s “hard” to compete with corporate politics for paid holidays.
“We are excited that this is being approved and that it will be signed. But it’s also a little scary because, you know, a week’s time — I don’t know what that would do to our business,” Allison-Seei said. “I think a lot of businesses are doing the best they can. that they may stand.”
Small business advocacy organization the National Federation of Independent Business opposes the bill, saying it “imposes a single mandate on all employers.”
Small business owners face high inflation, rising fuel and energy costs and a shortage of skilled workers, and demand will be an “additional burden,” NFIB state director Chris Davis said in a statement after the bill’s passage. “The message from Illinois lawmakers is clear and unequivocal, ‘Your small business is not essential.’
However, the potential burden on small businesses conflicts with the needs of their workers, especially those with children.
Van, a parent leader with Community Organizing and Family Affairs said she does not have paid leave until she has worked for a year. Knowing she’ll miss a payday when she or one of her kids gets sick is a constant stressor for the Belleville mom, but she assured PTO “would be great,” giving her peace of mind and ease some financial concerns.
Molly Weston Williamson, a paid leave policy expert and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress think tank, called the Illinois legislation “a big step in the right direction.”
In addition to establishing workers’ right to paid time off, the bill prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for using it. That’s key to making sure “low-income workers or other people who are more vulnerable are actually, practically able to take time off,” Williamson said.
Paid time off is both a labor rights issue and a public health issue, Williamson said. Service workers like Van, who handle food and drink without pay breaks, are more likely to call in sick and send their kids to daycare sick, “at which point they all get sick others,” she said.
“Especially now that we’re three years into a global pandemic, I think we all have a much deeper understanding of the ways in which all of our health is tied together,” Williamson said. ____
Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Statehouse America Report Initiative. Report for America is a national nonprofit service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercover issues.
