Families Dressed as Superheroes Lobby for sick-leave bill – The Baltimore Sun
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Early Thursday morning, moms and children gathered inside the Miller Senate building at tables littered with paper groundhogs and markers, but this Groundhog’s Day gathering was no celebration for Punxsutawney Phil.
Instead, the group of fewer than 20, each dressed up in a cape featuring a logo for family-advocacy group MomsRising, gathered to show legislators their support for a paid sick-leave bill, HB1, the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act.
…
The Maryland Healthy Working Families Act allows for employees at businesses with more than 15 employees to earn paid “sick and safe leave” — and unpaid leave for businesses with 14 or fewer workers — when the employee or a family member is sick, with few exceptions.
It also provides coverage to part-time employees and provides protection for any employee who takes earned sick and safe leave by making it illegal to “take action” against an employee who used their leave “in good faith.”
Hogan’s bill mandates that employers with more than 50 employees at each location provide “paid time off” — in whatever manner they choose — to those employees. Employers with fewer than 50 employees at each location who provide the leave are given a tax break.
Hogan’s plan does not cover employees who do not work full time.
Under both bills, employees earn one hour of time off for every 30 hours they work.
According to a study by the Maryland Center on Economic Policy, The Maryland Healthy Working Families Act would guarantee earned time off for 512,000 Marylanders, compared to 272,000 Marylanders under Hogan’s Commonsense Paid Leave Act.
