Preemption Threat Over, But Domestic Violence Bill Still Needs You!

Last night, Senator Hughes made a motion to revert HB 1796 to a prior printer’s number, eliminating the preemption amendment. The motion passed 26-22. Please take a moment to thank everyone who voted to help end the threat of preemption!

Thank you to everyone who made calls and spoke to their legislators, and a special thanks to our anti-domestic violence advocates and PCADV in particular.

The saga of HB 1796 continues, however. This bill, which passed unanimously in the House and was set to sail through the Senate until the preemption amendment was attached, is now marked as "over" for the day. In other words, the Senate doesn't plan to vote on it today, and since this is the last day of the session, it is the last day for votes. Unless we take action now, we will have to start over with this bill in January.

PCADV has put out an action alert asking everyone to reach out to their Senators right now. Please take a minute to do so.

STEP 1:
Please take the next 5 minutes and call your senators with the following suggested script— Harrisburg office numbers can be found here:

“My name is _______________ and I am a constituent of Senator ______________. I am asking the Senator to please support running House Bill 1796 for final passage today. It is currently marked “over" on the Senate calendar.
[If your Senator voted to revert the bill yesterday evening— click here to see roll call] I also want to thank the Senator for voting to revert House Bill 1796 to prior printer’s number 2870 yesterday.
His/Her vote supports victims of domestic violence who a faced with help or homelessness. Thank you for your time.”

STEP 2:
Click here to send a message to your Senator thanking them for their support on the motion to revert yesterday and urging them to run the bill today. If your Senator did not vote to support the motion to revert please change the message body to only include support for a final vote.

Finally, the gun rights legislation (the “Alloway Amendment”) that was nearly added to HB 1796 yesterday was instead added to HB 80. That bill is expected to run. You can call your Senators to comment on that bill as well.

Contact Your Elected Officials in Harrisburg and Remind Them "Paid Sick Days are Important"!

HB1796, a bill that would help survivors of domestic violence, is currently being used as a vehicle to preempt local governments from passing any type of paid leave policies such as paid family leave and paid sick days.

The bill is currently in the State Senate now contains language that would not permit local governments the opportunity to adopt ordinances allowing those same survivors to access much needed time to meet with authorities or care for themselves or their family members.

It is important that our elected officials know if you support survivors of domestic violence and HB1796, but only if language not allowing local government to allow paid leave policies is removed.

Issues as important as these, which have majority local support is most counties in Pennsylvania deserve to have the opportunity to be discussed with local officials who are responsible for their communities.

To find out who your legislator is, and to contact them, please click here!

Take Action: Stop Big Business From Vetoing Local Laws!

Right now in Pennsylvania, big businesses are trying to take away local rights to pass earned sick days and domestic violence leave laws.  Below is more information about this attempt, and ways that you can take action:

Don't Limit Our Rights in Pennsylvania

I want to have a voice in my community – that’s why I vote, take part in local hearings, and go to school board meetings.

I’m not alone. Pennsylvanians value our ability to make decisions that affect our schools, our neighborhoods and our communities. We know what works best in our backyards.

But some legislators in Harrisburg think they know better. They are trying to limit our rights and silence our voices with statewide legislation. What’s worse is that this legislation introduced by Rep. Grove (York) would hurt middle class and working women and families, like mine.

What we really need is for Harrisburg to stand up for all of us. To fight for policies that help create good jobs statewide, not to try to put an end to local efforts to support our families and strengthen our economy.

To read more and sign this petition, please visit http://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/don-t-limit-our-rights-in-pennsylvania.

No corporate veto on our local laws

Right now in Pennsylvania, some legislators are trying to deny us our right to decide democratically what's best for our local communities. They are working with corporate lobbyists to push statewide legislation that would stop cities and counties from passing laws about paid sick days, living wages and other workplace reforms that would help middle class and working women and families – families like yours.

Instead of trying to block local efforts to support our families and strengthen our economy, our legislators should be working in Harrisburg to create jobs.

Tell them to stand up to the corporate lobbyists to vote against these efforts to stop local communities from voting on earned sick days, decent wages and other modern workplace reforms.

Please call your state representative right now and ask him/her to oppose HB 1807.

To find the phone number for your legislator, please visit http://act.keystoneprogress.org/call/HB19807Call/.

NutterWatch: One Day to Ensure Safety for Philadelphians Who Survive Domestic Violence

On March 14, 2013, Philadelphia City Council passed a bill providing the opportunity for most workers in the city of Philadelphia to earn paid sick days. Mayor Michael Nutter has until April 4, 2013, to sign the bill into law or to let it leave his desk unsigned.

Either choice will pave the way for nearly 200,000 workers in Philadelphia to have access to earned sick days for the first time.

Until April 4, or until the Mayor signs the bill, NutterWatch will be here to give you the latest updates and to share the latest stories. To ask the Mayor to sign the bill, you can tweet him at @Michael_Nutter.

Mayor Nutter has just one day left to make a decision on earned sick days in Philadelphia. Over the past week, we've looked at many reasons why earned sick days are important to Philadelphians: to ensure restaurant workers and childcare workers can earn sick days; to promote equality for workers who need sick days to care for their partners; to meet the needs of Philadelphians with autism; to affirm the worth and dignity of Philadelphians; to transcend party lines; and, perhaps most importantly, to continue our rivalry with New York City.

Now, with one day to go, we have a final, and very important reason why Philadelphians need earned sick days: to protect survivors of domestic violence and their families. The Women's Law Project, one of the 110 members of the Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces, explains why:

We know firsthand how important adoption of this bill is to victims of abuse. Through both our telephone counseling service and policy initiatives, we hear from women who are unable to obtain protection orders or seek the assistance of other social services to help them address the abuse to which they are subjected because their jobs do not give them time off for such activities. Unable to risk losing their ability to support their families, these individuals continue to live in fear and suffer abuse without legal protection or other support. Those who take time off from work to address the domestic violence even though they lack leave time, risk loss of employment, destitution, and homelessness.

Except for the domestic abuse hotline and emergency services in Philadelphia, the courts and most social services operate on a 9 to 5, Monday through Friday schedule. While someone faced with imminent danger may call 911 or file a petition for an Emergency Protection From Abuse order at any time, anyone seeking a final order of protection or relief from the criminal justice system must ultimately appear in court during the work week, typically for many hours, and often on a repeated basis. Women seeking such orders have told us they simply could not take more time off from work to return to court again. If the plaintiff does not appear for a hearing, the court dismisses the petition and no relief is granted. This bill, if adopted, will enable victims of abuse to seek legal and other protection....

In conversations with state insurance departments around the country, we have been assured that the number of individuals seeking relief under statutes prohibiting insurance discrimination against battered individuals has been extremely low. In our work in Pennsylvania on implementation of the Family Violence Option, which allows domestic violence victims to be excused from work requirements if domestic violence impedes their ability to comply, we have also seen no abuse. Despite estimates that domestic violence victims make up 40-60% of the TANF population, the number of TANF recipients in Pennsylvania seeking to be excused from work requirements is very small, only approximately 2 % or less of the TANF adult population statewide. Philadelphia’s numbers are even lower, with the percentage of the city’s welfare population seeking work waivers consistently below 1% (Department of Public Welfare, unpublished data April -August, 2007). Just as fears of false allegations of domestic violence have not been realized in these situations, we do not anticipate false claims in this one.

The reasons are the same: battered women want to work and need to work to support themselves and their families. In addition, victims of domestic violence do not easily disclose domestic violence to anyone, let alone their employer: shame and fear of loss of benefits and employment are a strong deterrent to disclosure of domestic violence. Because requesting domestic violence leave requires such a disclosure, we do not expect domestic violence victims to request leave unless it is absolutely necessary for them to be excused from work.

If you think that Mayor Nutter needs to support earned sick days on behalf of families who have survived domestic violence, please let him know by calling his office today at 215-686-2181.


In the News

Yesterday, Yvonne Thomas, who owns a child care center in Philadelphia, published her opinion on earned sick days in The Philadelphia Daily News. She says:

Last week, a new parent from North Philadelphia dropped off her daughter at my day-care. I could see that the child wasn't feeling well and when I asked her mom about it, I could see the sadness and the fear emerge. "I will lose my job if I stay home with her," she told me as tears welled up in her eyes....

I speak not only as a Philadelphian concerned about our families, but also as a business owner concerned about keeping the doors open. I know there has been a lot of talk about sick days and small businesses, and I can say from my own experience that it not only works, but it helps my business thrive. The Institute for Women's Policy Research reports that earned sick days will save Philadelphia employers more than half a million dollars a year. For me, it is central part of my business plan. By offering my staff paid sick days, they know that I value and appreciate them, and it has helped me attract and retain a talented and dedicated staff....

A few paid sick days are not going to make or break any business in this or any other economic climate. City Council has done the right thing, and parents, kids, teachers, workers and business owners need Mayor Nutter to stand up on the right side of this issue. Mayor Nutter, please don't be swayed by the scare tactics of the business lobbyists. Sign the earned sick days bill for Philadelphia families, communities and businesses.

Where in the World is Mayor Nutter?

Mayor Nutter has nothing on his public calendar today (so far).

You can find Mayor Nutter's daily schedule at http://www.phila.gov/mayor/itinerary.html.

Why Are Earned Sick Days Important? Ask Betty Carr.

From the Reading Eagle:

Betty Carr had to move herself and her children out of their home after suffering physical abuse from her boyfriend.

Then her 8-month-old son got sick, and Carr had to stay home with him.

So Carr lost her job in food service because her employer believed she took too much time off to care for her son.

That put the 28-year-old and her two children in a Berks Women in Crisis shelter temporarily.

To read more about Betty's story and the issues that many single mothers face, please visit http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=375295.

Listen to Last Week's Radio SmartTalk to Learn More About Earned Sick Time

On September 13 last week, Representative Marc Gergely and Gene Barr from the PA Chamber of Business and Industry spoke for an hour about earned sick time in Pennsylvania.  As you may remember, this discussion was postponed last month because Rep. Gergely needed to take a sick day in order to meet with a surgeon about his son's recently broken foot.

You can listen to Representative Gergely and Mr. Barr and leave your own comments at the Radio SmartTalk page.  You can also download the podcast through iTunes for free.

image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fisher_500_radio.jpg

PCN Video on Need for Earned Sick Time

A new video on the need for earned sick time is now available.  PCN's monthly television program "Agenda for Action" included a story on HB 1830 and an interview from Tiffany Lomax about her need for earned sick time.  You can watch it on YouTube or view it below.

Some of the Highlights from the Earned Sick Days Hearing in Pennsylvania

As many of you know, the Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces took part last week in a great hearing on the need for earned sick days in Pennsylvania.  With the help of terrific coalition members and national partners such as MomsRising, legislators had an opportunity to learn about the need for earned sick days - and they took advantage of it.

During the legislative hearing and legislative visits, many legislators on both sides of the aisle expressed support after hearing personal stories of Pennsylvania residents impacted by their lack of paid sick time. And we left each legislator a packet of tissues to keep the issue at the top of their minds.

We’re closer to more legislators signing on as cosponsors – which means we’re closer to passing this into law. As Representative Marc Gergely, the lead sponsor of the bill, said at the press conference: “I think [we’ve set] the stage for success this fall and even more so in the upcoming session. We look forward to continuing the fight.”

The day was a great opportunity to remind our elected officials of the common sense reasons for providing a modest minimum of earned sick time – and of the stories of how not having any paid leave has impacted real Pennsylvanians.

One story came from “E”, a nurse who said she has often worked while ill and seen others doing the same, even those who work directly with critically ill patients in the Intensive Care Unit. As a survivor of domestic violence, E also underscored the need for earned sick time for other survivors. E not only had to work while injured, but when she left her abuser, he scheduled court dates to conflict with her work schedule.

“If I had access to earned sick time that could be used for domestic violence during this period,” E told legislators, “.... I certainly would have been able to use my time in order to attend court dates, preventing my job from being at risk. As a parent, earned sick time would have let me care for my children when they were ill without the worry of potentially losing my job.”


News outlets across the state have picked up on the success of this hearing, and the Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces plans to continue working with legislators on this issue at the local, state, and national level. In the meantime, please send a letter to your legislator about the need for earned sick days!