Dallas Joins Austin, San Antonio in Requiring Employers to Offer Paid Sick Leave

All Dallas employers would have to provide paid sick leave for employees under an ordinance approved Wednesday by the City Council.Clergy, labor and community organizations pushed for the measure — primarily aimed at service jobs — as a way to help low-income working families who don’t have 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 — and that’s a big if because the Legislature is weighing whether to kill such local mandates, which some groups say will be overly burdensome to businesses.The ordinance is set to go into effect Aug. 1 for businesses with 15 or more employees. Smaller businesses have until Aug. 1, 2021.But before the ordinance’s passage on a 10-4 vote, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings offered a cautionary warning 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 worksThe ordinance, which adds a new chapter to Dallas 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 to employees 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 needs 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 was 48 hours, although employees would be allowed to carry over hours from year to year.  Continue reading...

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