The House Committee on Labor and Workforce Development held a hearing this morning on HB 1313, which would require Washington employers to provide paid sick and safe leave to their employees. The bill is very similar to Seattle’s paid sick and safe time ordinance, which has been in effect since September 1, 2012. We wrote about Seattle’s ordinance in Labor Costs in Washington.

Under HB 1313, an employee (including temporary and part-time workers) would accrue sick and safe leave beginning January 1, 2014. Employees of “tier one” employers (with more than four to fewer than 50 full time equivalent employees) and “tier two” employers (with 50 to fewer than 250 FTEs) would accrue one hour for every 40 hours worked. Employees of “tier three” employers (with 250 or more FTEs) would accrue one hour for every 30 hours worked.

Aside from Seattle, only San Francisco (effective February 2007), Washington, DC (effective November 2008) and Connecticut (effective January 2012) offer paid sick leave. The laws in each jurisdiction are so new that there is not a lot of good information on their effectiveness. As we noted in Labor Costs in Washington, a 2011 study of the San Francisco law from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that

As a result of the law, 15.2 percent of workers (and 28.4 percent of workers in the bottom wage quartile) reported that employers reduced hours or laid off employees. . . .

Regarding presenteeism (coming to work while ill), 80.4 percent of employers said it was about the same as before the law (3.3 percent of employers said that it got better and 3.4 percent said it got worse). Additionally, “workers who had direct contact with the public were more than half again as likely to go to work when they were sick, even after the PSLO was adopted (24.3 percent), compared to other workers (14.1 percent).”

Today, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) released a pilot study of the Connecticut law. The Connecticut law is less expansive than the proposal before the Washington legislature. It applies to employers who have 50 or more employees in the state and exempts manufacturing and certain non-profits. Additionally, paid sick leave is mandated only for “service workers” (e.g. waiters, nurses, mail clerks, taxi drivers) who are paid by the hour, and temporary employees are not included. An employee accrues one hour of sick leave per 40 hours worked.

EPI surveyed businesses in Connecticut. Of respondents, “nearly 90 percent indicated that sickness in the workplace was not a serious problem prior to the law’s passage.” Many respondents also said that their future plans in response to the law included hiring less, raising prices and giving fewer raises.

While these actions aren’t representative of all employers in Connecticut, they again suggest that the law is not a cost-free proposal for employers. Of the 83 employers who responded to the question of whether the law was good for their business, 57 of them — or 69 percent — said it was not. (Nineteen employers said it was good for their business, and seven didn’t know.)

Further,

While it will take time to determine the true effect on employees, these preliminary results suggest that the monetary benefits of sick days were overstated in Connecticut — much as they were in San Francisco.