By David Eggert
Associated Press
LANSING (AP) — Worker advocates launched a 2016 ballot drive Monday to require that all Michigan employees earn paid sick days, a move they said is necessary because the Legislature has ignored a pressing issue.
The petition initiative, for which organizers must collect around 253,000 valid signatures, would ensure that workers receive one hour of paid leave for every 30 worked.
They could use a maximum of 72 hours of paid sick time a year, or approximately nine days, unless an employer allows mores. Workers in a small business with fewer than 10 employees could use up to 40 hours of paid sick leave, or five days.
“This is the No. 1 issue that parents, when we are meeting with them, are talking about,” Danielle Atkinson, director of Mothering Justice, said in a phone interview.
The petition wording was filed by Raise Michigan, the same ballot committee of labor interests and community organizers that collected signatures last year to raise the state minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
Before the state election board ruled that not enough valid signatures were submitted, Gov. Rick Snyder and lawmakers headed off the proposal by enacting a separate law gradually increasing the wage from $7.40 to $9.25 per hour.
If enough signatures are gathered for the sick leave initiative, it would go to the Republican-controlled Legislature. If legislators did not act, the bill would receive a statewide vote in November 2016.
The coalition said more than 1.5 million Michigan workers, or 46 percent of the private-sector workforce, cannot take a paid sick day when they are ill.
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