We have been following the national debate over a bill in Congress mandating employers provide paid sick days to employees, and noting implications of the debate for employers in Washington (most recently, here and here).
Interestingly, while no state has passed such a requirement (Senator Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, introduced a version in Washington in 2006 but it died in committee), three municipalities have adopted paid sick leave ordinances: San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Milwaukee.
Milwaukee's ordinance, which was adopted by referendum last November, was struck down last Friday. A Circuit Court judge declared the law invalidly enacted and unconstitutional in a challenge brought by the local chamber of commerce.
Both legal defects stemmed from the insertion of mandatory time off for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, which the judge found to be neither reasonably referenced in the referendum's ballot title nor reasonably related to the underlying purpose of the ordinance.
The Milwaukee ordinance was somewhat unique in this regard. The "Healthy Families Act" pending in Congress does not include a domestic violence provision. And while Washington, in 2008, joined a relatively small handful of states requiring time off for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking, there is no requirement that time be paid.
Paid leave proponents in Milwaukee how vowed an appeal. Whether the ruling stands, and has more than merely local signifcance to the overall debate about mandated paid leave, remains to be seen.
