| By Cory @ One Wisconsin Now - Nov 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 am EST |
| Also listed in: Corporate Watch | Making Work Pay | Wisconsin Women Matter |
Categories: Corporate Accountability , Economic Fairness, Jobs and Economy, Women's Issues, Labor, One Wisconsin Now - The "tOWN Hall"
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that a University of Chicago based researcher is enthusiastic about Milwaukee’s paid sick days ordinance. Inexplicably the business page reporter described it as “controversial.” A strange use of words since it was overwhelmingly passed by nearly 70 percent of Milwaukee voters. The only people that are creating a controversy are the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) and their mouthpiece Steve Baas.
The researcher referenced in the story is Susan Lambert, a professor in the School of Social Service Administration and an authority on the relationship between employment and the well-being of those that are employed. Lambert says that she thinks that Milwaukee’s Paid Sick Days ordinance is “great overall.” She went on to point out the following:
Lambert also went on to explain that such unnecessary turnover among this group of workers only leads to higher costs for employers in the form of additional recruiting, hiring and training. It seems reasonable to me that even those new employees could be vulnerable to the same forces and create what amounts to a revolving door of unnecessary costs to business.A key barrier to sustained employment is having the opportunity to take time off when you or your child is ill," said Lambert, who's speaking Sunday in Milwaukee as part of an annual lecture for alumni and friends of the University of Chicago. "That certainly is reported by workers, especially in low-level hourly jobs, as something that prevents them from sustained employment.
The knee-jerk reaction from big business interests has always been to cry wolf whenever society has demanded that they lift their standards. Think of all of the things that we now take for granted that business interests initially fought tooth and nail. It is really the same exact drill that they are employing now with paid sick days in Milwaukee. They pretend that the change is going to cause business to flee the city, that prices will go up and that workers will lose jobs. The same old drill every time and as usual, nothing could be further from the truth.
MMAC mouthpiece Steve Baas, a man that wasn’t fighting sick day benefits while the public paid for his in the state Capitol, was quoted in the story using the same tired talking points. Totally ignoring the fact that Milwaukee is not the first city to require paid sick days, (and those other cities have reported great successes), Baas commented that “I don’t know that we want our economy to be her (Lambert’s) lab rat. Lab rats often end up dead.” While his point is misplaced, it appears that Baas’ aversion for lab rats does not extend to sacrificial lambs, and that is exactly what the MMAC are threatening to make out of Milwaukee taxpayers by forcing them to defend against their frivolous lawsuit. Even further, and perhaps more tragically, they are also trying to continue their practice of making lower-wage workers the sacrificial lambs for big biz and their all important bottom lines.
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