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Posted: 12/5/2008 8:47:15 AM
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These 9 days of sick leave will only add to the burden of maintaining a downtown business presence. It will not only create a hardship on our company, but could pressure us into making a decision to leave the metropolitan Milwaukee area. I believe it will also discourage any business from entering this marketplace.
Marsha Mather,
Owner & president
Laacke & Joys
This [mandate] will make Milwaukee the only city in Wisconsin with a mandated paid sick leave and will brand Milwaukee as a “job killer.” This issue could make Milwaukee one of the most business-unfriendly cities in the country.
Chris Tackett
President & CEO
Wisconsin Merchants Federation
I am concerned that this ordinance, passed only in the City of Milwaukee, would put us at a competitive disadvantage and counter our efforts to attract new investment and expansion of Milwaukee businesses.
Mayor Tom Barrett
City of Milwaukee
For struggling with compliance issues category…
Last year, MGIC spent $562,226 on [sick leave] benefits for our Milwaukee co-workers. But, to have the city mandate a policy is unconscionable. In looking at what the mandate would add to the $562,226 we already spend, it would add another $1,802,774 to our costs, for a total of $2,363,000. Another $1.8 million annually for a benefit not even necessary. The ramifications are easy to figure out – employ less people and give less to charities in Milwaukee. Expand your business elsewhere.
Curt Culver
President and CEO, MGIC Investment Corp.
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Posted: 1/8/2009 10:50:15 AM
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The sick leave mandate will have the opposite effect of its intent. Where do they think this "benefit" will come from? Employers will have to take it out of other benefits. It will hurt employees who are already getting decent benefits.
In our company, we will have to cut the number of vacation days we provide to our staff so we can give them the mandated sick time. Then our employees will have to lie to us if they want to use a sick day for a vacation day. What kind of business environment will that type of behavior promote??
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Posted: 1/8/2009 11:11:12 AM
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Businesses will not benefit from the paid sick leave mandate. It will only hurt small, medium, and large sized organizations.
Is Milwaukee really about job creation?
If so, Milwaukee's paid sick leave will move jobs out of the area.
Britney Xiong
President
Western Bilingual
www.westernbilingual.com
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Posted: 1/8/2009 1:30:51 PM
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As I have watched this unfold, I thought to myself on several occasions how glad I was that we are located in Glendale and wouldn't be subject to this law. I thought "How would we handle this if we were?" "How would I break it to the employees that we would be forced to cut some of the other generous benefits that we give because uninformed and in many cases unemployed people voted for this ridiculous referendum?"
I also thought about what impact this might have on my competitors based in the city. Would they be forced to raise prices, or perhaps be forced out of business? I was once again thankful to be located in Glendale.
If I were thinking of expansion, this would take Milwauikee out of the running as a possible location.
In general I beleive this referendum is bad for our entire metropolitan region and Wisconsin. In rough economic times, it sends a message to all businesses that this area is unfriendly for business and expansion.
I fully support MMAC in their fight against this senseless and unneccessary law.
Jeff Hamilton
Vice President/General Manager
Sprecher Brewing Company, Inc.
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Posted: 1/8/2009 5:02:16 PM
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I am suprised there will be much anti-sick day support outside of Milwaukee. We all know this will drive business outside of Milwaukee and into the suburbs. These kinds of idiotic laws are what helps drive my site location business. Businesses need help finding new locations when they are taxed or legislated out of town. Therefore I'm all for it so don't count me in. When Chicago voted in the 10% sales tax and the anit-Wal-Mart laws, boom!, suddenly Chicago suburbs became a hot spot for new retail. Especially near the city limits of Chicago.
If this does go through look for more stupid legislation. How about at the next election, the citizens of Milwaukee vote for a $25 per hour minimum wage? Or how about they vote to have all businesses in the city pay a $5000 business license fee and the money will be rebated back to each household in the form of a local stimulus check?
I think Milwaukee voters would vote for anything that gives them free money at the expense of others.
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Posted: 1/9/2009 8:45:14 AM
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Quote:
Quoted From sbaas:
These 9 days of sick leave will only add to the burden of maintaining a downtown business presence. It will not only create a hardship on our company, but could pressure us into making a decision to leave the metropolitan Milwaukee area. I believe it will also discourage any business from entering this marketplace.
Marsha Mather,
Owner & president
Laacke & Joys
This [mandate] will make Milwaukee the only city in Wisconsin with a mandated paid sick leave and will brand Milwaukee as a “job killer.” This issue could make Milwaukee one of the most business-unfriendly cities in the country.
Chris Tackett
President & CEO
Wisconsin Merchants Federation
I am concerned that this ordinance, passed only in the City of Milwaukee, would put us at a competitive disadvantage and counter our efforts to attract new investment and expansion of Milwaukee businesses.
Mayor Tom Barrett
City of Milwaukee
For struggling with compliance issues category…
Last year, MGIC spent $562,226 on [sick leave] benefits for our Milwaukee co-workers. But, to have the city mandate a policy is unconscionable. In looking at what the mandate would add to the $562,226 we already spend, it would add another $1,802,774 to our costs, for a total of $2,363,000. Another $1.8 million annually for a benefit not even necessary. The ramifications are easy to figure out – employ less people and give less to charities in Milwaukee. Expand your business elsewhere.
Curt Culver
President and CEO, MGIC Investment Corp.
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Posted: 1/9/2009 9:29:57 AM
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Of course this something for nothing would be a slam-dunk for Milwaukee voters. This is a real job killer, one of the main issues that got our automobile industry in trouble, paying employees for not working. The only way to pay for these benefits is for businesses to increase prices for goods and services, making them less competitive, resulting in lower employment.
We have to attack the process that made this possible, allowing direct legislation by the voters. If this sick pay issue goes through, I guarantee that we will have mandated health care in the near future, again coming from the voter referendum. That's what happened in San Francisco, their pattern city.
Brian Dunn
President, GO AIRPORT CONNECTION
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Posted: 1/9/2009 12:15:54 PM
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The day when business owners and operators were respected members of Milwaukee has been replaced with an anti-business owner attitude. Milwauke is no place for a new or growing businesses to be.
The passage of the sick leave mandate has made the above statement true. The Nine to Five womens organization has made Milwaukee a place many women will eventually not be able to find a job. It is amazing that the old welfare mentality has come back to life in such a big way. Employees will no longer be allowed to chose what benefits they need, now they shall be told what they need.
If this referendum becomes law Milwaukee is going to shortly see the day when it has beoome another Detroit.
Edward Perkins
President
PIP Printing Milwaukee
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Posted: 1/9/2009 9:58:29 PM
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I own over 380,000 square feet of industrial space in three building located in Milwaukee. All are leased by tenants that are engaged in manufacturing or distribution industrys. The total employment engaged in these businesses it in excess of 200. All these tenants are actively looking for alternative facilities outside of Milwaukee, primarily because of new law.
This will result in not only the loss of these jobs, but cause the vacancy of all of these facilities. The loss of employment and subsequent taxes will greatly impact Milwaukee city and the county.
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Posted: 1/12/2009 2:20:39 PM
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I am not an owner of a company, but an employee. I am, however, the manager of the small company (25 employee's). As a small business manager, I'm fully aware of all the cost our company has to deal with to stay afloat. This new law would add about $45,000.00 extra per year to our bottom line, of which we don't have at this time. I would also like this group to let me know how to provide our services for our customers when any 1 - 25 employees decides to call in sick. Just missing one employee is costly to our company. I don't believe the people who voted for this realized the depth of it's impact.
The only result that will become of this will be our city loosing employers, property owners, taxes among many things.
The city of Milwaukee needs to change it's laws so some other group won't be able to put measures similar to this on a ballot in the future and let citizens who don't care about our city make this kind of detrimental decision.
Sadly, everyone loses in the end of this deal.
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Posted: 1/26/2009 1:44:23 PM
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After working for a large downtown employer many years in a managerial role, I quickly compared the attendance policy that we revised each year to this mandate. After 7 missed days, we put folks on a final warning, on the 8th, they were terminated. Now this ordinance is allowing up to 9 paid sick days? That is more than we found feasible to adequately staff as just part of the regular attendance policy.
When your labor and benefits are your biggest expense in business, how can this possibly help employers stay afloat? On top of that, how can a multi-site employer track this? If you have employees working in Milwaukee one week, then out of the city, do these employees accrue time only for the hours worked in city limits?
How about the employer with a location in downtown and others outside? Does this skew the employee's benefits for those working in the city? How is this fair?
As a Workforce Management Consultant with ADP, we discuss these issues every day. Employers simply will not be able to compete with rising healthcare costs, paid time off, paid sick leave and the regular burdens of simply running a business.
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Posted: 1/27/2009 12:04:41 PM
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The 9 day mandated sick leave will have no positive benifits for the City of Milwaukee. It will drive jobs out of town, make it more difficult to attract new businesses into Milwaukee, employers will end up restructuring benifits or pay to accomodate the regulation. In many cases it will prevent employers from adding people and growing.
This will also have a negative effect on industrial property values as there will be less demant for industrial property in the City of Milwaukee.
I wonder how many people would have voted for this if they knew that this may end up having them or friends and relatives lose thier job
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Posted: 2/1/2009 3:53:21 PM
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As an owner of a micro business who has 6 employees, I would like to share my opinion of the paid sick leave act proposed by 9to5 and voted in by a majority this last November. My business has seen a down turn in recent days. I am down 25% this December over last December and January is down 10% over last January. I mention this because the recent business climate is changing; businesses of all sizes are doing less business. The extra burden of sick leave may be the straw that breaks the camels back, not just for my business but for many. I am already looking at laying off 1 employee as a result of weaker sales; paid sick leave will make the 1 a definite and possibly make it 2 layoffs. I am holding off as long as I can, but revenues continue to shrink. You can say maybe I have a weak business and that I wouldn’t survive with or without paid sick leave. That may be true, but a healthy businesses fate can turn very fast in this current business environment. I considered my business healthy a few months ago, now I am looking at trimming expenses and layoffs as options to stay in business. I understand how nice paid sick leave would be, there are times when I wish I would have had it, I wouldn’t have needed 9 days, that’s a little extreme. People are going to use those extra days as vacation days and the business owner has no recourse with the way this ordinance is written. Then there are the businesses who just can’t afford it, how are they going to pay for it. They will either go out of business or they will have to make cuts, we all know a business’s biggest expense is its employees, some good people will lose their jobs over this and to think there won’t be any losses is simply ignorant. Then there’s the unfair business climate we are creating for our city, those who can afford it will simply move their business. Some already have offices in two cities; they will simply expand the one outside of our city. Literally the business across the street or down the road from mine will be a better business because of this ordinance. I understand that life isn’t fair, but let’s not intentionally make it unfair for everyone in the city of Milwaukee.
Jason Dodge
Milwaukee Laundry
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Posted: 2/6/2009 12:36:37 PM
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I am so happy Judge Cooper did the right thing today. This paid sick day mandate will have a devastating affect on our community. If it is not stopped, I will have to take drastic measures in my business. Most of my employees are paid on commision, and the only way we can comply would be to lower their comission rate. How does this help them? I can tell you as a bussiness owner I do all I can afford to do for my employees, as do most I know. Let us decide what is best for our employees, and let them decide for themselves if they are dissatisfied. Thank you Tim and MMAC! Maia Hanson
Glow Salon and Spa
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