City Councilors and labor advocates hope to increase the number of paid sick days that employees in Pittsburgh receive.
“Most working people have families, so you need sick time for if your child needs a doctor's appointment,” said Marla Blunt, a 32BJ SEIU member and worker in food services at Duquesne University who joined workers and officials for a Tuesday rally to support the cause. “I have an elderly parent that I am responsible for, and if my mother gets sick or she needs a day off, I need sick time to take care of not just yourself but your family members also.”
The city has required employers to offer paid sick leave since 2015. An ordinance passed that year requires employers with 15 or more workers to grant at least five days of paid sick time per year. Workers at smaller employers can accrue up to three days of paid sick time annually.
A bill introduced this week by Council President Dan Lavelle would increase the allotment of days off, adding four days to the total number of sick days employees of large companies can accrue, and three days for employees of smaller companies.
SEIU members and advocates, along with Mayor Ed Gainey and several council members, rallied outside the council meeting Tuesday in support of the legislation. Supporters said that the COVID pandemic and other factors meant it was time to review the decade-old policy to see if it still met the community’s needs.
“2015 seems like multiple lifetimes ago at this point. We know so much more about public health, we know so much more about how it affects the economy,” said City Councilor Khari Mosley, who attended the rally. “So it was definitely time to come back to the drawing table and look at [what at] the time was landmark legislation.”
“It is well established that paid sick leave leads to an increase in the use of preventative care, and by extension significantly reduces costs attached to hospital visits and public spending on programs like Medicare and Medicaid,” Pete Schmidt, 32BJ SEIU Western PA District Leader, said in a statement.
The bill had political overtones: The 2015 bill was championed by then-Councilor Corey O’Connor, who is challenging Gainey in this year’s Democratic mayoral primary. O’Connor has cited the measure as proof of his progressive political credentials. Expanding on that effort — with the help of SEIU, a key ally — could similarly be a feather in Gainey’s cap.
For his part, Gainey characterized the new bill as an expansion of work he began in 2023, when he created the city’s Office of Equal Protection to enforce the sick leave policy.
“Now, we’re building on that progress,” Gainey said. “Every work place in Pittsburgh should be safe, healthy, and thriving.”
Not everyone was as enthusiastic. Thomas West, one of two Republican candidates running for mayor, put out a statement of his own objecting that the was “contemplating how to make it harder for small businesses to survive.
“The proposed changes to the Paid Sick Leave Act may be well-intentioned, but they ignore the real cost of doing business in Pittsburgh — especially for local entrepreneurs trying to stay afloat,” said West, who himself runs a men’s clothing store.
But Councilor Barb Warwick described enhancing sick leave benefits as “a no-brainer” that is good for workers, customers and employers all trying to avoid the spread of disease.
“Many of us are fortunate — myself, my husband, we're able to work from home, we’re kind of able to juggle it and make it work,” said Warwick, who noted her own child had a fever for four days last week. “But a large, large number of our workers here in Pittsburgh, our frontline workers … they are not able to work from home.
“It’s really important that workers have the time that they need to take care of themselves, to take care of their families when they are sick.”
