By Hugh R. Morley, Staff Writer. The Record.
Pending state legislation is backed by religious, labor, civil rights and other groups and decried by businesses
New Jersey has joined the growing number of cities and states nationwide where worker advocates have sought, with some success, to require employers to provide workers with paid sick days — and the state’s business community is not happy.
A bill requiring employers to give workers up to 40 hours of paid sick time a year is pending in the Legislature, and a coalition that says it represents 200 religious, labor, community, civil rights, student and retiree groups is gearing up for the statewide battle.
The stakes are big: About 1.2 million private sector workers in New Jersey, or 38 percent of the sector, have no access to paid sick time, largely in the restaurant, security, construction and transportation industries, according to a report by the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work.
[…]The issue has found considerable support among women’s organizations. That’s partly because women are disproportionately impacted by a lack of health care, either as single mothers or because they are the caregivers required to take time off when children or other family members are sick, said Karen White, director of Work and Family Programs at the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work.
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