|
|
Gov. Ted Strickland continues to work toward brokering a compromise that will keep a proposed mandatory sick day issue off of the Nov. 4 ballot, but supporters on Thursday issued a call for help in the "final push" for petition signatures.
Gov. Strickland said in a list of guiding principles distributed to stakeholders on both sides of the issue that a sick leave polity "must be written and implemented in a way that effectively balances employees' interest in the availability of paid time which can be used when they are sick with employers' need to efficiently manage their workforce."
Business groups are gearing up a multi-million dollar campaign to defeat the proposal, which would among other things require that employees be able to earn seven days of paid sick leave each year.
Dale Butland, spokesman for the Sick Days Ohio campaign, said supporters of the citizen-initiated legislation (HB 536*) have no problem with the principles Gov. Strickland has laid out, and believe the bill already conforms to them.
"Right now I don't see any way we're not going to the ballot. That's why we're continuing our push for signatures," Mr. Butland said in an interview. "We have always thought we'd have a ballot fight. We still do."
"The problem is the business people we talked to ... opposed paid sick days in principle, and said they would not agree to mandated paid sick days of any kind. That's not something we can agree with or go along with," he said.
The Governor:
