I was watching the video stream of Stuart Levitan’s show Access City Hall. The episode I was watching was with Ald. Robbie Webber and lobbyist Jennifer Alexander from the Chamber of Commerce and Vicky Selkowe, Healthy Families, Healthy Cities campaign and lobbyists Delora Newton, Chamber of Commerce (formerly lobbyists for Smart Growth Madison Inc.) talking about the paid sick leave ordinance.
I couldn’t believe my ears! How out of touch is the Chamber of Commerce?
On the one hand, the supporters of the paid sick leave ordinance were talking about families who are going to get evicted cues they can’t pay their rent because they lost pay due to time off because they were sick or to take care of sick family members.
On the other hand, the Chamber of Commerce was talking about having to not give employees tuition reimbursement or pension plans.
WTFO? How much of a bigger disconnect could there be. Does the Chamber really believe that the same employees who are on the edge of being evicted have jobs where their employers offer tuition reimbursement and pension plans as benefits?
Somehow, I don’t think those are the employers that are going to have issues with the paid sick leave ordinance. My guess is their policies already offer vacation and sick leave that exceed the ordinance as proposed.
Seems as tho the Chamber of Commerce is trying to get middle class folks concerned that their benefits will go away because this ordinance will force employers to take away middle class benefits in order to give “benefits” like paid sick leave, that most of us take for granted, to “those people”. Class war anyone?
