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Chicago Sick-Pay Mandate Advances In City Council

(CBS) -- Aldermen have given preliminary approval to a proposed ordinance that would make most companies in the city give their workers mandatory sick days off.

Bridget Early, lobbyist with the Chicago Federation of Labor, says the alliance of unions is strongly in favor of the sick pay ordinance.

"We believe that all workers deserve dignity in the workplace. No one should be forced to choose between their health and their employment, and no one should have to choose between caring for a loved one and losing their job," she told a City Council committee reviewing the proposal.

Michael Reever, vice president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, opposed the measure.

"Someone called this a compromise, but you can't have a compromise when it's given on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, or when you have a group of proponents in the room negotiating with themselves on what an ordinance should look like that impacts every employer in the city, big or small," he said.

More than half of City Council members have signed on as sponsors of the measure.

 

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