WORKFORCE FLORIDA EMPLOYER-SPONSORED BENEFITS …€¦ · Webcast I want them to understand what it...

WORKFORCE FLORIDA EMPLOYER-SPONSORED BENEFITS STUDY TASK FORCE

NOVEMBER 19, 2013

CHRIS HART: Well, good morning and welcome to the Employer-Sponsored Benefits Study

Task force meeting. This is our third meeting of the task force. The first meeting of course was

a conference call/webinar. Our second meeting was held in October and was very similar to this

November format that we will have today and then our fourth and final meeting will be held in

December and that, of course, will be a webinar as well. All task force members I can see are

here, the Chairman was late. My apologies to each of you, I had a call that took a little bit longer

this morning than I had anticipated. So that we can get started, we need to start with the pledge.

I would like to invite Jeff Clyne to lead us in the pledge.

JEFF CLYNE: Thank you sir. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and

justice for all.

CHRIS HART: Thank you Jeff. So, in lieu of an official role call, what we’d like to do is have

each of the task force members just do a very quick introduction and say hello. That will help

the panelists know who we are and it will serve as our official role call. When we get to Marcia

Gonzalez it’s the first time we’ve had the opportunity to see her here face-to-face so we will put

her on the spot for a little lengthier introduction of herself just so we can get to know each other

and Dr. Holcombe we’ll start with you.

DR. HOLCOMBE: I’m Randal Holcombe. I’m an economics professor at Florida State

University.

ANDY MADTES: I’m Andy Madtes. I’m the President of the Hotel Workers Hospitality Union

in South Florida I am also the President of the AFL-CIO.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

ART KIMBROUGH: I’m Art Kimbrough and I’m the President of The Overstreet Company, a

funeral home management company. I’m also retired from ten years of serving as CEO of the

Jackson County Chamber of Commerce in Marianna, Florida.

JEFF CLYNE: Hi I’m Jeff Clyne, President and owner of Mid-State Machine and

Construction. We’re a heavy industrial contractor in the State of Florida.

WALTER CARPENTER: I’m Walter Carpenter. I am President of Pinel and Carpenter, a real

estate appraisal firm from commercial to residential in Orlando Florida.

SENATOR ROB BRADLEY: I’m Rob Bradley, I’m a Senator representing District 7 which

includes all off Alachua, Bradford and all of Clay Counties and I’m also a managing partner of a

law firm.

GREG RIEHLE: Good morning, I’m Greg Riehle, Senior Vice President and General Council

Saddlebrook Resorts located in the south side of Tampa Florida. We’re a large destination resort.

CHRIS HART: President and CEO of Workforce Florida Incorporated. Our mission is to help

Floridians remain and advance in the workforce and we do that by ensuring we have the right

skills at the right time for today’s market needs and tomorrow’s market needs.

MARCIA GONZALES: My name is Marcia Gonzales. I am a Council Representative for the

Florida Carpenters. It’s a labor organization that represents about 5,000 carpenters in the State

of Florida. I came to Miami since ’86, made it my home and I have been a proud member of the

state of Florida since then, thank you.

REP. JOHN WOOD: I’m Representative John Wood. I’m from Central Florida and represent

District 41which is Northeast Polk County. My occupation is a small business owner and real

estate attorney.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

CHRIS HART: Well, good morning. As I’ve done in the past, a few things I’d like to cover. It

is important to always have a safety briefing because we are in the Public Service Commission

building, I know that they appreciate that. In the event of an emergency, please note that there

are exits directly behind you, we have exits behind us as well, just want to point those out. When

you exit out the doors you can turn to your right or left to leave the building. So now that we’ve

noted that, I think we’ve done our official PSC business in the Betty Easley Center. I do want to

note for all the task force members, you’ve heard this and you’ll hear this every time, but this is a

public meeting we are being recorded. As you may have heard earlier when Mike and I were

bantering back and forth, we are being recorded on the Florida Channel. This will be Webcast,

so anything that you say will be heard or may be heard by any of your fellow Floridians

anywhere in the State so that they may have the benefit of you testimony and comments that are

shared here by the task force as well. For the task force members, we are under Sunshine Law,

of course that means we can have no conversation outside of these public meetings on any topic

related directly to the task force mission. It’s always important just to remind you of that, so you

have now been reminded. Because we transcribe these meetings and if all notice the

transcription from the October meeting is now on the Website. It’s quite lengthy. Kim, it’s over

100 pages, I believe? I hope you’ve all had an opportunity to at least look at some of the

highlights. However, because the transcriptionist takes all of our testimony verbatim, so this

information comes directly from us to the pages, it is important that we identify ourselves before

we speak. I know it’s a little awkward, but it will help the transcriptionist a good bit so for

instance when I start I should say Chris Hart and then begin to speak. If those of you on the

panel can do that as well, especially as we get into the Q&A because otherwise the


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

transcriptionist will really just have some difficulty which one of you have answered a particular

question. Ms. Gonzalez I know you had an opportunity to give us a brief introduction on

yourself. Is there anything else you would like to share with the task force before we begin?

No? Okay. Thank you. I did want to give you that opportunity. So I think it’s important as we

begin each one of these meetings, that we simply reiterate the purpose of the task force. It, of

course, helps to focus all of us over these next several hours in terms of the conversations we

need to have but it’s also important because as I said many of our fellow Floridians may be

watching the proceedings of this task force and if they’ve tuned in for the first time in this

Webcast I want them to understand what it is that we are attempting to do and why we have

formed. The purpose of this Task force is to analyze employment benefits and of course the

impact of state preemption of the regulation of such benefits, and develop a report that includes

findings and recommendations which will be submitted to the Governor, to the Center President,

and to the Speaker of the House. That report I believe is due January 15th. We are right on track

with this our 3rd meeting. We believe we will have a report to submit by that date. So

employment benefits defined, it is important when we are talking about employment benefits,

how the legislature has defined those for the specific conversation we are having here today.

That is anything of value that an employee may receive from an employer in addition to wages

and salary. We had a robust conversation about that particular topic during the last meeting.

That is good that we clarify this so that we do understand the specific, unique role of this task

force. The term includes but is not limited to health benefits, disability benefits, death benefit,

group accidental death and dismemberment, benefits paid or unpaid, days off for holidays, sick

leave, vacation, and personal necessity. Retirement benefits and profit sharing are also included


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

in the definition. Now specifically the issue on the table because employer benefits we could

probably meet for months if not years and talk about each one of those items that I just checked

off in terms of the definition, but it’s the State’s preemption. So State preemption defined is a

very important aspect of what we are looking at. State preemption precludes a local government

from exercising authority in a particular area. Generally, a local government may pass a more

stringent regulation than one provided by statute. However, local government may not enact such

an ordinance if the legislature expressly prohibits its regulation or if the imposition of regulation

frustrates the purpose of a statute. So as we met back in September as a task force and had that

initial meeting, what the task force collectively decided to do because of our charge here as a

task force and because of the time in which we have to deliver the report findings and

recommendations is to, in essence, really focus on three key questions. First and foremost, the

main question on the table is, should State Government preempt Local Governments from setting

minimum mandatory employer sponsor benefits? So, that’s really the question on the table.

Should State Government preempt Local Governments from setting minimum mandatory

employer sponsored benefit? If the answer is yes, the State should preempt, the task force

endeavors to answer the question why that answer is yes and should the State of Florida therefore

set minimum mandatory employer sponsored benefits. So if the task force agrees that

preemption is necessary and right, explain why we think that’s right, and then we need to take it

one step further if that’s the case and also answer the question, should the State then therefore,

set minimum mandatories? If the answer is no, we then need to also answer the question of

why? The task force, so you know, did debate the question if it’s no, should we therefore then

recommend to local governments what they should consider and we decided that that was really


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

outside of our purview, since in that case we would be leaving to local governments that decision

to look into the matter themselves. So those are the questions on the table. For those of you on

the panel, I know, of course, that you’ve had multiple conversations with Kim Yablonski or

others in preparation for today’s panel discussion but did want to put that on the table once again.

Just to cover the format for today’s meeting. Dr. Weissert, we will begin with you and we will

simply move down the panel as we move through today’s meeting. But here is what we plan to

do. Each of the panelists, you’ll have five minutes to make your case and you have all been

instructed as experts in the area of local control with the questions that we have just stated.

You’ll have five minutes to present your case. When you are finished we will move to Mr.

McQueen then Ms. Lewis so on and so forth all the way through to Ms. Hernandez. Once you

have completed that time my plan is to begin with representative Wood and he will then have

five minutes to ask general questions of each of you or he may ask specific questions of one or

two of you based on your specific testimony and then we’ll move to Ms. Gonzalez and then

move over to Mr. Riehle and we’ll conclude with Dr. Holcombe and at that point I will have an

opportunity as well as either the Chairman or as a task force member to ask five minutes as well.

So you also know the rules of engagement when the moves into our five minutes, we set this

precedent during the last meeting and that is, if say representative Wood is right up against his

five minute time period but he’s in the middle of asking a follow up question, we will allow him

to finish his question, and then even though his particular five minutes has concluded, we will

still provide you panel with the opportunity to fully answer that question. We do not want to cut

off any time in that particular instance. Are we clear in terms of how we plan to do this? Okay,

very good. Well, Dr. Weissert what I will do is set five minutes, unfortunately I do not have the


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

timer set here so you’re just going to have to look at me, I’ll give you a two minute warning and

then kind of give you a signal when we have hit the time. Are you ready? Dr. Weissert, thank

you, you are recognized.

DR. CAROL WEISSERT: I’m going to talk to you today about a very specific employee issue

and that is municipal pensions and municipal health benefits. The LeRoy Collins Institute has

studied this issue the pensions for about three and a half years and now we have a new report

coming out on health benefits. I’ve given you copies of two of the reports. I’ve spared you.

There are actually two more, so if you wish to have all the reports they are listed here and the

dates and then the OPEBs which is the health benefits is a report that we are going to be putting

out in the next couple of months. So I’m going to talk to you about mainly about municipal

pensions because in Florida, let me remind you that the counties and the school districts are part

of the FRS System, so we’re talking about municipal pensions. When I switch to OPEBs if I

have a chance, it will be counties and cities because OPEBs are not part of the state system. The

scope of the problem is that many, but by no means all municipal pensions in Florida are

underfunded. We’ve also looked at some recent trends and the recent trends are basically toward

more underfunding, but

TIME STAMP: 15 MINUTES one of the big issues, again, that we want to work this group to

is health benefits because they’re the ones that are below the radar. A number of groups now are

studying municipal pensions but I don’t think people are looking at it yet at local health benefits.

This is a quick summary of the trends of 2010 which is the latest data that we used here about the

median or the typical municipality in Florida with 70% funded and this is basically assets over

liabilities. You want to be in the 80%, the 90%, category if at all possible. The other thing that’s


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

interesting about this slide is that it shows a downward trend and a lot of times there has been

some argument. Municipal pensions are in trouble because of the recent recession and obviously

they had a lot of effect on the assets but we show the trend really started before the recession. I

might say that this is the hundred largest municipal plans in Florida that are defined benefits. We

also graded the municipal plans, that made us real popular in about 30% of the municipalities

that failed and because we are Academics Professors we gave them a 90, 80, 70 and below 70 is

failing. This just kind of shows you what we found. The good news is that there are a number of

cities well over a third of the cities that are doing fine, 80% or more funded, but then there are

also a number that are under that and I might also say that this reflects also the plans. There are a

number of cities that will have a fire plan and then a police plan and a general employment plan.

This briefly just shows you one of the concerns is local governments are picking up most of the

cost. So as there has to be more costs put in the pension plan, it’s not the employees, it’s not the

state it’s the local governments. And then for the first time in 2010 in the typical municipality in

Florida paid out more money in retirement benefits then it contributed in benefits earned that

year. This is problematic just because of the general demographics of the state. We are all

getting older, we are going to see more and more of this and this could be a very important

turning point. And this slide basically shows what we think municipalities should do to improve

their pension plans. Our recommendations, one of the things again, this is in the material, but

one of the things that might be interesting and I know Senator Bradley is very concerned in this,

is removing the statutory restriction on premium tax dollars. So in the municipal pension area,

there are some areas where the state really imposes itself and this is one of those areas which we

could go into if you would like to later. And this is a brief slide on the health benefits, again


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

there is another state law. The state law requires both municipalities and counties, and that’s

what this reflects, to provide implicit benefits, which is basically employees can buy into the

health plan of the city or county at the same rate as if they were working there, that’s required by

state law. The explicit benefits of the municipalities and counties decide on their own whether

they want to provide benefits beyond the implicit benefits. This could be money. This could be

extended coverage. It’s a whole variety of other things. What this slide shows you is that the

cities and counties in Florida are basically doing this as a pay as you go system. They don’t have

money put aside for it and our estimate is it is about $7 billion. So our recommendations are do

away with the state law requiring the implicit benefits, but we do think that state oversight is

important. And I know I’m running out of time but just one thing about the Chairman’s question

about what the state should do. Our concern is not on not having the state come in, but just

having the state monitor what’s going on in local retiree health plans. Nobody at the state level

even collects the data at this point so we’re the first ones to do that. So we think that the state

should come in but only as an oversight and then provide that information to the citizens of the

state.

CHRIS HART: Dr. Weissert thank you, very interesting testimony. Mr. McQueen are you

prepared? All right you’re up sir.

RICARDO MCQUEEN: Good morning, my name is Ricardo McQueen and I’m speaking here

today as a small business owner and an expert in public health. I’m the owner and President of

Food Health and Environmental Safety in Orlando Florida and I have more than a decade of

experience providing health, safety audits, training, food industry certification and compliance

assistance for hospitality, medical and environmental businesses. Some of my clients include


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Barry Beef, Taylor Ham, Starbucks, Purity Bakery, Comfort Suite and British Colonial Hilton.

From my perspective as a small business owner, the cost of earned sick time is negligible. While

the benefits are great for both business owners and public health, small business owners

appreciate the stability and productivity that comes with earned sick time. Turnover can cost

anywhere from 25-200% of a worker’s annual compensation. Earned sick days also increase

productivity due to eliminated “presenteeism”, which is when workers show up sick and are

unproductive. “Presenteeism” is estimated to cost our nation $160 million annually surpassing

the cost of absenteeism. The cost of “presenteeism” in food service is particularly steep. As we

pay for it with our public health. Earned sick days also lower healthcare workman’s

compensation costs. OCEA and CDC research shows that workers are 28% more likely to suffer

workman’s injuries when they do have earned sick time. Any way you look at it, earned sick

time is good for small business. So let’s move to the public health aspect especially with food

service employees who work sick, reduce business profits by endangering the health and

productivity of other workers as well as customers and the public. Here are some fast facts. One

in six Americans gets sick every year from food with about 20% of cases traced to an ill food

worker. Forty-six percent of Orange County workers don’t have access to sick time, but in the

food service area that number can be as high as 88%. Nationally, 63% of restaurant workers

surveyed responded they have worked serving or preparing food while sick and The Journal of

Food Protection found that 19.8% of employees worked while experiencing vomiting/diarrhea in

the past year. And so it is no wonder that 92% of Americans feel it is important restaurant

workers, specifically servers and cooks, do not handle food while sick. So what are the likely

ways to get sick from a restaurant worker? Norovirus and influenza are two of the biggest


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

concerns. Norovirus is a common, easily transmitted food borne illness that causes vomiting,

diarrhea, cramping and fever. Half of all cases of food borne illness in the U.S. can be attributed

to the norovirus infection.

Nationally, 3,000 deaths and 125,000 hospitalizations result from food borne illness

according to the most recent data from the CDC. The CDC advised that the measures most

likely to reduce the incidence of norovirus are correct handling of cold foods, frequent hand

washing and provisions of paid sick leave.

Regarding influenza, just last week a new bird flu was reported in humans ages 6 and 1.

Back in 2009 and 2010, lack of sick leave policy contributed to the spread of H1N1 with sick

workers estimated to have infected 7 million of their coworkers. Guaranteeing earned sick time

to workers will mitigate the impact of norovirus, influenza and other contagious disease in the

tourist economy such as central Florida. This translates directly to more economic activities such

as tourists and vacationers who are hampered from shopping, visiting attractions and eating out.

Without government protected sick leave we essentially leave it up to the low wage restaurant

workers to decide what is the best public health by choosing between infecting the public while

working sick or losing their job. Public health should be taken seriously enough to support

common-sense policies that puts a buffer between the sick workers and the public. Finally, I

believe that earned sick time policy is so valuable to the public health that it should be

considered at all levels of government. Small business owners work here across county lines

already adapt to dealing with a patchwork quilt of zoning, taxation and regulation that protect

local economies. A common sense earned sick time policy at the local, state, or national level

would result in improved public health, higher productivity, economic gains for small businesses


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

and those who institute it first will be the competitive advantage on promoting superior public

health policies. Thank you very much.

CHRIS HART: Mr. McQueen, excellent testimony. Thank you for the data as well. I’m quite

certain given some of the figures that you are recording that you will receive questions from

members of the task force, but thank you, that was outstanding. Ms. Lewis are you prepared?

Are you ready? Ms. Lewis the floor is yours.

GLORIA LEWIS: Hello, my name is Gloria Lewis, I’ve been a restaurant employee for over 22

years. Bear with me because I may get a little bit emotional here I am warning you right now.

As we go forward and begin to try to get benefits for restaurant employees. I’ve been subject to

having to work sick on many occasions. I’ve been subject to watching employees work sick

where the sweat is dripping off of them and falling right into the food for the fact that the

employers don’t care whether you’re sick or not. We’re deciding to pay the bills or do we lose

our job. Of course, we are going to go with not losing our job. At the same time, we are putting

so many people at risk, not because we want to, but because we are forced to and because we

need our jobs. I’ve been fighting this for a long time, not only have witnessed it, I have seen so

many employees suffer, I mean cry, take up smoking cigarettes because the stress level is so

high. There are so many restaurants employees that are on depression pills, all kinds of drugs

because the stress level is so high. They have kids at home sick, but they are bullied into coming

to work. We have nobody speaking for us, no sick pay, no vacation pay, nothing. One day, my

nephew had his hemorrhoids flare up and he called me and he said auntie I can’t work. He said I

can barely walk and the manager won’t let me go home and he asked what should I do. I said

you know what, come home and let them deal with me. Lucky for my nephew he had insurance


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

so he was able to go to the doctor and he was able to provide a sick paper so they couldn’t

terminate him, but there’s probably 99% restaurant employees have no benefits. Some are on

Medicaid which is a cost to everyone and so we don’t have a choice. We really need these

benefits. Like I said, it’s a public health issue. I work in this industry and I do not want to eat in

a restaurant. I just drove up from home to here. I brought my food with me. Everybody that eat

in the restaurant is at danger. You guys have no idea what it is that you are facing here. Your

health is on the line. I mean, we are what we eat. If what you are eating is not healthy and you

have contaminated people handling your food at some point it’s going to get sick. I’ve

witnessed, on so many occasions, where one employee is sick and before you know it the whole

restaurant is sick because we don’t have a choice. I mean the owners know that we’re sick and

they’re not going to say well go home. They don’t care. It’s business as usual. As long as there

is a body there to do the job, they don’t care what’s going on, you know what I mean? Let’s just

get the job done. I’m going to say this once again, it’s not just about benefits, it is about public

health. Somebody needs to do something, not only for our sake, but for every person that eats in

a restaurant. Somebody needs to step up and do it. I’m here trying, but I can’t do it on my own.

It’s up to whoever is on the Board that gets it and sees that it is a big problem.

CHRIS HART: Ms. Lewis, thank you. That was very heartfelt and I know it was personal and

thank you for coming here and thank you for doing this publically. It’s a difficult thing to do just

in a small group. I know it’s a very difficult thing to do in a setting like this in a big room. I very

much appreciate it. Dr. Applebaum are you prepared?

30:00

DR. EILEEN APPLEBAUM: Yes, thank you.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

CHRIS HART: Apparently, Mike has it set up with a timer here. So all you have to do is

watch this and you no longer have to watch me and that’s a wonderful thing for me, thank you

sir, but Dr. Applebaum you’re recognized for 5 minutes.

DR. APPLEBAUM: Thank you very much and I appreciate having this opportunity to speak to

the task force. As Ricardo and Gloria have already said a lot of what I was going to say at the

beginning of my remarks so I don’t have to repeat it, but I do want to emphasize that it is a

public health issue as well as a personal issue for workers who don’t have paid sick days and that

I think Florida has an interest. It’s not just that its public health, but that it puts a strain on

hospitals workers. Without paid sick days, workers go to emergency rooms much more often,

they take their children to emergency rooms 5 times more often than people that have paid sick

days. This is a strain on the hospital system and this is also a strain on taxpayer financed health

programs like the children’s health insurance program, Medicaid and Medicare. This is the most

expensive way to get healthcare. So there is a taxpayer interest in this as well as a public health

interest. So I come to you because I’m an economist and have studied for 20 years the effects of

public policies and company practices on outcomes for employers and outcomes for employees.

I’m equally interested in both. I’d like to see practices that improve living standards for workers

but also that contribute to the success of companies. I’m here especially today because along

with Professor Ruth Milkman of the City University of New York we have been studying

Connecticut’s paid sick days law. It’s the first state to have it. They’ve had it now for almost 2

years, not quite 2 years, 1 year and 3/4s, since January of 2012 and we began studying it in

August of this year when there had been about 20 months of experience with the law and when

there was enough time for even part-time workers to have earned paid sick days for employers to


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

have at least a year’s experience, some have had 18 months experience with the paid sick days

law. So I come to bring you the full report will be out in January but I come to bring you some

preliminary results from that. First of all, a majority of employers do already provide paid sick

days to at least some of their employees and I understand that those that don’t or that perhaps do

not include their part time workers have concerns about how this is going to affect their business

operations and what the likely outcomes are going to be. I can tell you we have a couple of cities

that have experience with it. San Francisco has had more rapid employment growth than the

surrounding counties in the Bay Area. Washington D.C., the big concern was that businesses

would leave Washington, it’s this tiny little place surrounded by Virginia and Maryland, and the

concern was that businesses would leave Washington to go to the surrounding areas. The city

just conducted an audit of businesses and discovered that they are not planning to leave

Washington D.C. Businesses go where their customers are and that’s where they stay. So let me

get quickly to the findings. What we found is that in Connecticut 89% of employers offered paid

time off to at least some of their employees, not necessarily to all. On average, they offered 7

paid sick days. After the law passed 85% of the businesses offered a minimum of 5 paid sick

days to all of their employees. I can go into detail about who might have been excluded.

Despite the availability of the paid sick days, employers reported that 1/3 of their employees took

no paid sick days in the previous 12 months. It’s not that everybody is running out and using all

of them. On average they reported that workers use 4 paid sick days and more than half of the

employers told us that their workers used 3 or less. The bottom line is that most workers view

paid sick days as a form of insurance and they save them for when they really need them.

There’s no evidence that workers use these days frivolously. They use fewer days than they


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

have available and in addition the overwhelming majority on Connecticut employers, 86%,

reported absolutely no abuse of employee sick days. When employees are out for the day or two

employers can usually cover the work by asking other employees to chip in, putting the work on

hold or allowing workers to swap shifts and that’s quite common in both restaurants and retail

where you have a lot of part time employees. These are the most frequent methods used, by 91%

for exempt employees, that is salaried, and by 85% for hourly employees. These methods have

no cost at all to employers, but there are some industries like healthcare or catering where you

need the full complement of workers and in that case there is some cost. Forty-four percent of

Connecticut employers reported absolutely no increase in cost and another 30% reported small

increases in payroll costs. These were offset to some extent, not completely by reductions in the

number of employees coming to work sick by the spread of illness in the workplace and by

increased productivity and by improvements in morale. So I’ll skip now just to, one last thing

that I wanted to say, we asked them an overall question, so how supportive are you of this law?

And 77% of employers in Connecticut with 18 or 20 months of experience with the law said they

were very supportive or somewhat supportive of the law. So they objected to it before it came

into effect, but once they had to deal with it, they saw that it was not what they thought it would

be and I can tell you some antidotes later if you ask me about them. So my basic view is that the

state has a public health and taxpayer interest in providing a minimum of paid sick days. The

state has to think about all of the communities rural, urban, suburban and may want to set some,

well Connecticut set 5 paid sick days. A city like San Francisco with a different set of values can

set a higher standard if it wants and San Francisco set 9 paid sick days for employers with 50 or

more employees and 5 earned sick days for smaller employers. I’ll just point out that, and this is


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

my final comment, that the national compensation survey shows that on average employers

provide 9 paid sick days to their employees although, of course, this varies by the wages of the

employee and by the length of time they’ve been with the employer, but on average in this

country employees get 9 paid sick days. Thank you.

CHRIS HART: Dr. Applebaum, thank you for traveling down here to Florida to spend some

time with us we had actually had a conversation during the last meeting about some of the cities

that had implemented some of these statutory changes and I would imagine given your specific

expertise and the preliminary findings that you have been reviewing that you too should expect

some questions. Dr. Templin, I thank you for being here with us today. Mike are we ready for

Dr. Templin? You are recognized sir.

DR. RICH TEMPLIN: Mr. Chairman, Senator Bradley, Representative Wood, and task force

members, thank you for the opportunity to be here and I also just want to take a couple seconds

of my time to commend all of you. I was fortunate enough to be here last month and I have to

say that the level of discourse and the way that the discourse was facilitated by Chairman Hart

was really inspiring and I was really thrilled to see it. That you as a group of business leaders

and legislatures got beyond the sloganeering and you really asked some really intelligent

questions so thank you for that as a citizen of the state of Florida. I also feel like deviating for

just a second. I would be guilty of malpractice for the hundreds of thousands of workers I

represent if I didn’t also offer that I was not expecting the very, very contentious ongoing issues

of local pensions to be discussed here today, but if there are questions on that issue I would be

happy to address some of those in the characterizations were made as well. I know that Senator

Bradley is on top of this issue and working diligently with all sides to come to a resolution.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

What I would like to address very quickly as the de facto lead researcher and lobbyist for the

floor at AFL-CIO, I have about 10 years of experience dealing specifically with the issue of

preemption when it comes to wages and/or benefits and the interplay between local governments,

the state, the constitution and etc. I’d like, based on those experiences, to just share 3 areas with

you briefly. First, I will review the 2003 preemption of local ordinances, dealing with wage

minimums and how the compromise reached during that time is informative to the questions you

have in front of you. Second, the bulk of the panel during lasts months meeting represented the

restaurant and hospitality industries and I believe that much of the data shows that the folks that

will be most benefitted on this issue of earned sick time and could use it the most are in that

industry so I’ll share a little that we’ve learned over the years about that industry. And then,

finally, share some of the information that we, as an organization, the Florida AFL-CIO have and

what we’d like to see the recommendations look like from this body. In 2003, after several years

of local campaigns to support surrounding local living wage laws, business groups backed

legislation that would preempt local governments from enacting any ordinances requiring our

employees to pay higher than the state or federal minimum. You spoke about that last meeting.

The final version of the Bill, however, when enacted exempted from that preemption local

governments and their contractors for goods and services. The reason that the compromise was

worked out is very informative. That is because legislators from both sides, the Democrats and

the Republicans, believe that this is about local economic development for local governments. If

local governments and their taxpayers wanted to see their tax dollars going into projects and

going into services that paid higher wages so that those workers had more expendable income

could then pump that money back into the economy they saw that as something that was positive


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

for their economic growth and that’s why those ordinances were enacted. So when that

compromise was worked out it was because again Republicans and Democrats believed that

local government should have this tool available in their toolbox to be able to enact these

ordinances so that their tax dollars are getting the most bang for their buck when it comes to

helping their businesses and helping create jobs in their community. Now House Bill 655 that

created this task force when originally drafted undid that compromise, it went back on a

compromise that had been working for years and last month there was some conversation about

recommendations that would support that original version of House Bill 65. We would hope that

you stick to what you all have agreed to and not kind of go backwards on that, but we think it is

important when you’re looking at the ability for the local governments to earn sick time

ordinances that it be viewed in somewhat of the same way, as a potential tool for economic

development to help these low income workers provide for their families and keep their jobs and

spur economic growth. Now second, there was a fair amount of testimony last month indicating

that mandated minimum earned sick time policies and others whether enacted locally or at a state

level would be devastating especially to the restaurant industry which, according to

characterizations last month, has been suffering. Last year, when the Florida Restaurant Lodging

Association pushed for legislation that would allow restaurant owners to opt-out of state

minimum wages for tipped employees to revive a struggling industry I was compelled to

research the issue. What we found from the National Restaurant Association that Florida is

number 3 in the nation for rapid growth in the restaurant industry and the hospitality industry.

We are third in the number of jobs created and we are third in the rising of profits. They

indicated in 2011 that we were on track to be the second most robust state in the nation when it


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comes to this industry, looking at a growth rate of 17% annually. So when you hear these

characterizations with very little data attached to them, that our industry is struggling, that we

can’t afford all of these mandates, I would ask you to look at the data more closely and see that

this is a robust industry. Finally, just clarifying where we hope your task force will move in the

direction, first again. We do hope that we don’t continue to lose ground and some of these local

ordinances that have been passed are working very well across the state to create jobs and boost

the economy, secondly we believe that there should be statewide policies, we don’t like to see

the patchwork as it was characterized last month. I hate the idea of having someone in one

county be able to get time off to take care of their families and somebody in the county next door

are unable to have that same opportunity. We think there should be a state policy on that as

opposed to local ordinance, however, until those state policies exist, we believe that local

government should be able to respond to the wishes and the will of their constituents and their

tax payers, just like you respond to your customers or representatives. Senator, you respond to

your constituents to enact policies that will work for their community. Finally, if the so-called

patchwork is the main concern for the business community, we believe and are willing to work

hand-in-hand with that community to create bookends, to create some guidelines which local

ordinances would have to follow so that there would be as minimal variation from county to

county and those variations that did exist would be something that statewide businesses could

easily adapt. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, sorry for going a few minutes over.

CHRIS HART: No apology necessary at all Dr. Templin. Thank you for the background,

that’s always important I think for us to understand how we ended up here, today and you’ve

been involved with this for a number of years, so that’s why we’re really appreciative of your


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

time. Thanks for the specific recommendations as well. I mean we are kind of getting to that

point after this meeting and that will be very helpful to us. Ms. Hernandez are you prepared?

The next 5 minutes are yours.TIME STAMP 45:00

CYNTHIA HERNANDEZ: Good morning, hello my name is Cynthia Hernandez and I’m a

researcher at the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at the Center for Labor and

Research and Studies at Florida International University. The research institute where I work,

also known as RISEP, studies and publishes facts, figures and information to the general public

and the media about issues that impact the lives of working people in Florida. Today, I am here

specifically to present some research on the importance of giving a local government controls

over passing living wage ordinances and earned paid sick time throughout their communities and

in Florida. Firstly, on living wage ordinances, the U.S. Census Bureau for 2012 showed that 23%

of Florida’s residence can be qualified as poor, in deep poverty or near poverty. Ongoing

research shows that Florida’s minimum wage currently set at $7.79/hour is not a livable wage for

many residence throughout the state of Florida. Many workers and their families in many cities

cannot sustain themselves on this minimum wage. Because the cost of living varies from city to

city, cities or counties should determine whether or not they want to pass living wage ordinances

in their respective communities, furthermore, living wage ordinances cover only wage rates for

workers providing city or county services throughout contracted or direct labor. Studying such

rates is an issue for the city or current governments alone to make. By creating a living wage

ordinance, governments are opting to use public money to maintain or elevate living standards in

their communities rather than using public money to create working poverty or to subsidize or

fund employers who pay poverty wages. Livable wages create more purchasing power for


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

workers and their families, which in turn lowers the need for government support services and

creates consumer spending in the local and state economies. Research findings show that living

wage ordinances improve the stability and reliability of the workforce. When workers receive

livable wages everyone benefits including employers who experience lower turnover rates and a

level playing field where competitive advantage cannot be gained by paying poverty level wages.

Multiple studies have shown that the bidding for municipal contracts remain competitive or even

improve as a result of living wage ordinances. Furthermore, a detailed study of 20 cities with

living wage ordinances found that the actual budgetary effect of living wages tend to be less than

1/10 of 1% of the city’s overall budget. Because Florida is already experiencing a pervasive

poverty problem with 23% of Floridians living in poverty preempting and abolishing local living

wage ordinances would be detrimental to Florida’s workforce and overall economy.

Theft ordinances: Since 2006 I have been researching and documenting wage theft cases

throughout Florida. In 2012, I released a report that indicated that nearly $42 million are stolen

from worker’s paychecks each year in Florida. Florida’s key industries, tourism, retail and trade,

agriculture and construction have the highest number of reported wage violations. This is due in

part that Florida lacks a Department of Labor. In 2002, the Florida legislator voted on the

initiative of then Governor Jeb Bush to dismantle the State Department of Labor. The State

reorganized and the department is now known as the Department of Labor and Employment

Securities also known as DOLES. Functions established for a nonprofit corporation of

Workforce Florida and the Agency for Workforce Innovation, AWI, which handles several of the

DOLES roles and responsibilities but not waged in our complaint. Currently Florida has no State

equivalent to the Department of Labor to investigate wage complaints and does not have staff to


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

enforce its minimum wage law. As of March 2012 the Florida State General had not thought one

single civil action to enforce the State meet minimum wage law which was enacted in 2004.

Furthermore, federal and state minimum wage laws have numerous exemptions that exclude

millions of workers in Florida from protections against employers who withhold their earnings.

For those workers that are not covered under federal and state labor laws there are few avenues

of redress. The combination of exemptions and the inadequate enforcement of those that are

covered leaves Florida workers vulnerable for wage stopped and other forms of labor violations.

In 2010, Miami Dade County responded to the federal state deficiencies and enacted an

enforcement mechanism by creating and passing the first county wide wage theft ordinance in

Florida. In nearly four years Miami Dade has been able to award and recover over $3 million in

unpaid wages backed to its citizens. Since then, two other counties followed suit and passed

their own wage recovery ordinances Broward and Alachua County because they saw a need for

its residence. Those wage theft ordinances are an effective enforcement mechanism and an

exception to the lack of recourse faced by many victims of wage theft across the state. The

inhibiting and exempting current and future wage theft ordinances throughout the state of Florida

and allowing the rampant spread of wage theft raises a question of whether a city and state

economy can be healthy and grow while tolerating an unjust business model that avoids

contributing to tax revenues and paying workers what they are owed. The employers who fail to

follow the laws for paying their workers create an unfair business environment and penalize

those employers who do follow the law. Maintaining a level playing field for businesses is

critical to maintaining a competitive business environment and true economic growth. Further,

this dishonest business model undermines Florida’s efforts to attract new businesses. Wage theft


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

is a growing problem that cannot be ignored much longer. Thus preempting abolishing wage

theft ordinances throughout the state raises a serious concern regarding Florida’s becoming an

example of a state that tolerates its anti-business practices and fails to protect workers and ethical

employers. And lastly, on paid earned sick time, in 2003 Commonwealth Fund Survey found of

adult workers in the U.S. that lack of paid sick leave leads to reduced productivity of workers

that come to work even when sick because they cannot afford to take unpaid days to recover.

This creates a problem of “presenteeism” when workers come to work and experience reduced

productivity while they are sick or preoccupied with sick family members. Also important is

paid time off to visit the doctor. In the survey studied, those who did not have paid time off were

more likely than those who did to have 6 or more sick days per year and also to have 6 or more

days per year of low productivity. Providing paid sick leave to workers benefits workers their

coworkers and their employers in addition to the general public as many of the workers who do

not have paid sick days work in professions that include regular interaction with the public such

as retail, hospitality, service. When workers can take leave to care for their own health and that

of their family members they are more productive and likely to be in better health. Policy

solutions should be explored to increase the number of workers who have paid sick leave. And

in conclusion, policy and decision makers concerned with economic health of the state or of their

regions should have the ability to create local goal ordinances to address the needs of their

communities. For Florida to become competitive in the recruitment of new businesses and the

creation of jobs it has to promote a fair business model for workers to earn a livable wage, paid

sick leave and without fear of not being properly compensated for their work. That’s preempting


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

and abolishing ordinances raises serious questions regarding the viability for state and local

economies hoping to attract new businesses and workers in order to grow. Thank you.

CHRIS HART: Ms. Hernandez, thank you, very comprehensive and very robust testimony. I

thank you for your time here today. Before we begin with Representative Wood, I would like to

let the general public know, of course we plan to have public testimony today. Mrs. Yablonski

has a sign-up sheet. What I would like to do is have you pass it around. Each of you who plan

to speak if you would, please put your name on the sheet and then the organization that you

represent because what I would like to do is give everyone an opportunity to speak that has come

here to speak today. We do have a planned break. We’ll just manage our time based on today’s

testimony and the 5 minutes that each of the task force members have and then your specific

time as members of the public as well, we’ll just manage the agenda fluidly. So we got that?

We’ll just pass it around, if you could sign that, it would be wonderful. Representative Wood are

you prepared for your 5 minutes?

REP. JOHN WOOD: Thank you Mr. Chair. I want to first start out by saying that as a policy

maker and I think everyone in this room can probably agree, that the economic health of our state

is very important to our citizens and what we are really here to discuss is what is the best model

to achieve that, and there is going to be a disagreement about that obviously. So I’ll start with

Dr. Templin, obviously the organization that you represent has got some different standards. I

know your organization perhaps doesn’t agree with our state policy on the right to work, but

going back to the wage law that you described and the compromise there, are you suggesting that

perhaps employer benefits for government contracted work that local government should have

that same right with employer benefits as they have with the prevailing wage?


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

DR. TEMPLIN: Mr. Chairman. Well, first just in characterizing my organizations role and

wanting to be here today. The people that we represent are not impacted by the bulk of these

issues because the benefits that they receive are collectively bargained and they are in contract.

We are here because our constitution, our mandate, our charter as an organization requires us to

do whatever we can for the betterment of all working families and to provide economic justice

statewide whether someone is in a labor union or not. In answer to the more specific query, I

think the example of the 2003 case is really the clearest case of preemption that we have in

recent memory where the legislature looked at an issue and decided that in this area we are going

to preempt. And the reason that I bring up that case though is because in the compromise it

indicated that some of these employee benefits, in this case wages, but also nonwage benefits

could be a tool that local government could harness for economic developments. We believe that

in the case of wages where it’s direct monetary value that will cost an employer … but you know

as Senator Edwards said in a discussion not too recently if I don’t want to do that then I don’t get

the contract and consequently he doesn’t., but when we are talking about benefits I believe Dr.

Applebaum responded there is very little cost to business for things like this earned sick time and

some of these other ancillary benefits. So I don’t think that the analogy is 100%. I think that our

recommendation would be, as I stated, there should be a state policy and we think that that policy

should provide a minimum, a floor if you will, and then perhaps some variability amongst the

counties to go above that or bracketed if you are not going to allow, excuse me, if the state is not

going to have a policy, don’t simply say we are not going to have a policy and we don’t want to

allow local governments to have a policy, but bracket it and say it can be within these guidelines

or what have you. So that would be our specific recommendation.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

REP. JOHN WOOD: Thank you Mr. Chair. Well, getting back to the philosophical argument

though, I mean your organization exists because we have freedom of economic model in our

society. If the government were to mandate everything that you collectively bargain for would

there even be a need for your organization?

DR. TEMPLIN: Mr. Chairman. That is a very interesting philosophical question. I would

answer though your premise that we exist because of economic freedom, the labor movement has

been affirmed by the Supreme Court repeatedly based on first amendment, guaranteeing the right

of free speech in association so it’s not so much an economic case as it is a free speech and

association case. In terms of mandates coming from the government again our mission is not to

be an organization to collect dues from members, our mission is to provide economic security for

all working people and rebuild the middle class. So we believe that earned sick time policies is a

good way to do that and if for some reason that leads people to think that wow I now have the

ability to take care of my family maybe I don’t need to join a labor organization that would just

be the chips falling were they may, but in the mean time we would still have a better work place

situation here in this state.

REP. JOHN WOOD: Thank you Mr. Chair. Well I guess the point that I’m trying to address

with your testimony and with testimony of other of the members is that what is the best

economic model? When we have the right to make choices, when we don’t have government

mandates, it creates a better economic environment and I think that’s been proven by the vitality

of the economic recovery here in Florida and in Texas and states like that as opposed to other

highly regulated states California, Connecticut these other states where the economic model is

perhaps not as robust.TIME STAMP: 60 minutes


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Where I have the problem is in the government mandating. I mean I think it’s a good

business practice to provide sick pay for my full time employees. Now part time employees it

becomes a little bit more of a dicey situation because of their arrangements with part time

employees I know that some industries utilize part time employees a lot. I think it’s left better to

the market place just like your organization is a result of the right to associate, the right to create

a market place for workers to be collectively bargained for and it’s not the government

mandating this is how we are going to do it throughout society and if we did that, right, your

organization wouldn’t do any collective bargaining, they would just be an advocate for economic

justice which is what you’re saying the reason you’re here today. You’re not really helping your

union members, they have all these benefits. So I’m just a little amused that you’re here because

to me that’s not what I perceive the value of your organization, but I guess the political value of

your organization is really why you’re here.

CHRIS HART: So that concludes Representatives Wood’s time but I certainly would allow

response.

DR. TEMPLIN: I don’t know if this would be a violation of the Sunshine Law but I would love

to have a robust conversation with the representative, a very thoughtful man, and it would be

even better for me to have Dr. Holcombe in on this because I know that he has some strong

thoughts on the fundamental questions that you’re posing, but I would remind the representative

in terms of why we are here and why we are involved in this issue and why we have been

involved with it at the legislature. Our members go to restaurants too. Our members order food

out and we want to make sure that food has not been contaminated by any type of contaminate.

We live in these communities. We want to make sure these communities have an economy that


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

is thriving because not only does that help our members it helps our neighbors, it helps build

stronger neighborhoods, better communities and better schools. So really when you consider

that we represent close to 1.2 million union members, retirees and family members around the

state, I believe that we have an interest in all of the economic aspects of our great state, I’m a 4th

generation Floridian, to thrive and grow and we want to weigh in on their behalf whenever we

can. Thank you.

CHRIS HART: Thank you. Dr. Templin I’m certain that after January 15th you, Representative

Wood and Dr. Holcombe can have a very robust conversation about all of this. Thank you both.

Ms. Gonzalez your five minutes you are recognized.

MARCIA GONZALES: Thank you. I’m going to be using probably a lot less than 5 minutes,

but I just want to make a comment to start with, we are a country of laws, if we have to put into

law we have the right to assembly and the right to express our self and the right to practice the

religion that we want, yes we are a country of laws. I agree with you, that if Florida… To start

with, it wouldn’t hurt anybody. We, and this is probably just my personal opinion, let me clarify

that, I think that the cost of doing business in Florida needs to include the primary asset which is

the workers. The same as the primary asset for this state for the citizens of Florida that work

every day and try to make our state bigger and better for any particular business whether smaller

or bigger, the workers need to be considered and workers like Gloria Lewis her presence here in

this room is the majority of Florida because the majority of Florida is going to wind up going

through this situation. I commend you for being here Gloria. I think the majority like you and

has the same concerns and needs that you have and that’s what we need to look at how much the

Gloria’s of Florida are left affecting the productivity of these offices that are making Florida


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

what it is? If it’s the cost of doing business we need to start looking for a baseline a beginning.

Something that is going to guarantee that people will be more motivated to come to work in

Florida because we know that the wages are not, we have people graduating from Universities

and Colleges and going to seek employment somewhere else because our wages are still not

what the other states offer. In order to keep that talent, in order to keep the good people with

Florida to make something better for the people of Florida and that’s what I would say. I do

have a question for Dr. Applebaum. You mentioned the average sick pay of the entire country

nationwide, my question to you would be is there any data or have you been able to come across

any data of what is, if there is any, the average sick pay in Florida?

DR. APPLEBAUM: No, they don’t break it down by state. I don’t have it with me but I can

send you for this region of the country but not the by state.

MARCIA GONZALES: Okay.

DR. APPLEBAUM: We do have it at different levels of wages if that interests and of course the

folk without the paid sick days are overwhelmingly those whose earnings are either in the bottom

10% of the workforce or in the bottom quarter. So in the country as a whole, 65% of workers

have at least 1 paid sick day, at least 1; 35% of workers have none, but when you get down to the

folks who are at the bottom of the income distribution, 80% have not even one paid sick day.

Your point about “the Glorias” and I do commend Gloria for being here, I know how difficult it

has to be, and her story could just be multiplied 80% of people in her income category like

Gloria have no paid sick days. It doesn’t answer for the state of Florida, but it answers for that

income group.

MARCIA GONZALES: Okay. That’s all I have.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

CHRIS HART: Thank you Ms. Gonzalez and Dr. Applebaum in terms of any of the data you

have access to some of the preliminary data you may not want to share that, but anything that

you can share with us we’d love to have if you can get that to Ms. Yablonski we want to collect

as much of the data, as much of the analysis that you have so that we can consider it for our

findings especially as we are looking for a recommendation.

DR. APPLEBAUM: We will have more for you before your next meeting I’ll be happy to get

some of that to you.

CHRIS HART: Thank you so much. Mr. Riehle, are you prepared? You have your 5 minutes.

GREG RIEHLE: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Our task force is charged with giving a report and

recommendations and I’d like to kind of drill down a little bit on some specifics. Specifically,

what I want to ask about, relates a little bit to your comment Dr. Applebaum. Your testimony

that in Connecticut the employers, while there was very little abuse of paid sick days and that the

employers didn’t find that there was a lot of abuse as well. It’s obviously true that if people

aren’t using sick days, then of course they are not abusing them, but some people are using sick

days and I think it would be naïve not to think that some subset of those people are abusing the

sick days and by abusing I mean, I don’t show up to work because I don’t want to or I want to go

fishing or I got a hangover or whatever that might be. So let’s assume for a moment that what

our task force comes up with is a recommendation that there is going to be statewide preemption

of this issue, that we are going to recommend in favor of some level of paid benefits. I think we

get a little upset to hear people sweating while they’re serving food and they’re so sick and all

that and I appreciate the emotion of your testimony. But let’s say for a moment that what we’re

going to recommend, should there be some sorts of restrictions or restrains or reporting


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

requirements that an employee who wants to take advantage of their sick days has to have? For

instance, do they need a doctor’s note? When do they need a doctor’s note? Is it 1 day or is it 2

days off in a row? Have there been studies about that, looking into that, and what do most of the,

if there are ordinances in local municipalities or states around the countryside have adopted the

paid sick leave legislation, what do they do about that particular issue?

DR. APPLEBAUM: Right, and so that’s a very good question. As I mentioned there is very

little abuse. We also have many years of experience with the paid family leave in California

which gives you up to 6 weeks of paid leave and there was a similar concern with 6 weeks as

opposed to 5 days what was likely to happen. So I think you’ll be interested to know that the

California employers also found very little abuse, but you’re right there are always some bad

apples and you may have to be concerned about that. There are 2 things to say to that. One is

that employers in Connecticut and in California the state takes care of you it’s a state program so

you present your Doctor’s note to the state but for the paid sick days the individual employers

can set whatever they want. Most do not set it at 1 or 2 days because the expense to the

employer, you’re out with a fever, you’re out with a bad cold you’re going to get better in 24

hours. To have to go to a doctor and you can’t even get into see a doctor in 24 hours, but

anybody who is out 3 days, generally speaking, they do require a doctor’s note if you’re going to

be out 3 days or more. What some employers have told us is that, in fact, there is so little abuse

of it, they don’t even ask the employee for the reason. So, it’s just not worth the extra hassle of

tracking who took off because they had a Doctor’s note and they were whatever. You have your

5 paid sick days and then that’s all that you have so the abuse is so little in general that the added

expense to the employer of tracking the reason for it, why they were out, did they bring an


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

excuse, many employers told us we don’t even ask why they’re out. They have their 5 days and

that’s it. But, in answer to your question, typically, they will require a Doctor’s note if you are

going to be out 3 days in a row or more.

GREG RIEHLE: Thank you. I also wanted to follow a little bit up on your testimony just now

about California’s program there. Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I’ve read up on that I

believe California handles it through their temporary disability system is that right?

DR. APPLEBAUM: So, we have five states in this country that since the 1940s have had paid

medical leave. So that if you are hit by a car on the way to work, you can collect partial wage

replacement from the state and in fact, it runs for 52 weeks and if it’s pregnancy related it runs

for 26 weeks. God forbid you should have a pregnancy where you need 26 weeks of medical

care. But in any case they’ve had these laws on the books since the 1940s. The states are New

York, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New Jersey and California. We imposed it on Puerto Rico so they

have it as well at the behest of the U.S. Government. And there is no movement in any of those

states from the chamber of commerce or from individual employers to roll it back. It’s just been

there for decades without having any negative affect. So that is through a temporary disability

insurance program, it’s like the temporary disability insurance programs that many employers

have and in fact if the employer has it then they can opt out of the state program.

GREG RIEHLE: I think in Florida, employees also contribute to the disability program if I’m

not mistaken. I guess I opened that up to the panel. Is that the way it should be done in this

state? Or is this something that should be dropped upon the employers to take on.

DR. APPLEBAUM: There’s two different kinds of things.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

CHRIS HART: Real quick just so I can manage the time. Mr. Riehle that will conclude the 5

minutes. But because he launched that last question out to the panel, if any of you after Dr.

Applebaum would like to respond, please do so.

DR. APPLEBAUM: So there are two different things. One is an insurance program like

unemployment insurance run by the state. And the other is a minimum employment requirement

like minimum wage. So a minimum number of paid sick days on the order of 5 to 9 paid sick

days is generally something like a minimum wage. It’s an employer provided benefit. My

personal view of things like long-term disability insurance is that in fact, it should be run the way

unemployment insurance is run as a state program.

GREG RIEHLE: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Sorry about going over.

CHRIS HART: No, no, no. Thank you. Would anyone else like to respond? Yes. Ms. Lewis.

GLORIA LEWIS: I must say, even as we don’t have any sick pay and any sick benefits, very

rarely is there any abuse, even without it because the majority of employees in this business

cannot afford to play those games. Now, you will have a few people that haven’t been on the job

for maybe a month or two, but they’re not going to qualify for the benefits anyway because no

job is going to give you benefits after 30 days. But the majority of people that are professional

people and take their job serious and don’t want anything just a fair playing field, there’s hardly

any abuse. They’re willing to come to work sick but not at the risk of losing their job, or at the

risk of making someone else sick. I mean somewhere there’s got to be a middle ground

somewhere in here. You know, I think that there should be some kind of middle ground. I mean

it can’t be all or nothing. You see what I’m saying?


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

GREG RIEHLE: I do. And I’m sure you’re right about that. I’m sure the vast, vast majority

of people that take advantage of it are doing it for legitimate reasons. I’m sure that’s the case.

GLORIA LEWIS: I haven’t had any benefits for years and I don’t call in sick. I haven’t had

vacation for years.

GREG RIEHLE: What I’m trying to get at is finding the balance between what’s right to

protect the legitimate employer’s interest and making sure that there isn’t abuse as well.

GLORIA LEWIS: But at some point you’ve got to get some employees in there that’s been on

the job long enough that can help speak for the employees because a force that doesn’t even

understand what it is we’re dealing with, that’s just going with the logistics, don’t get me wrong,

we need the logistics, but we need reality also.

Which is why I’m here. Trust me. I can’t afford to take off work and come here. If my

boss knew what I’m doing here I might be in trouble. But you know what? I’m speaking for all

the wait staff who are too scared to come and speak. And oh well, if I lose the job, the man

upstairs, he send manna from the sky. You know what? I’m speaking for all the other millions

that are too scared, and I, too, was too scared for so many years. I just say forget about it. I’m

going to speak for whoever I can.

CHRIS HART: Thank you, Ms. Lewis. Would anyone else like to respond to Mr. Riehle’s

question before we move to Senator Bradley? Senator Bradley, the floor is yours for the next 5

minutes.

SENATOR ROB BRADLEY: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to first of all thank everyone

today for your testimony. It was very enlightening. And Gloria, if your employer gives you a

problem, you’ve got some folks here that can talk to him. We appreciate you being here. Don’t


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ever apologize for speaking out for what you believe in. That’s what this country’s all about and

we appreciate your being here. There are a couple of issues that were raised that I don’t think

we’re going to address in our final report. But they are issues that I’ve been involved with so I

wanted to just take a moment to hit on. One was the municipal pension issue that Dr. Weissert

discussed as well as Dr. Templin addressed very briefly.

And I just, rather than get into the details of that, I just want to say I appreciate

everybody’s input and we are filing a bill. It made it out of the Senate last year, and did not

make it out of the House, but my door will continue to be open as it was last year to all interested

parties on that matter.

And I know that the cities have a lot of interest in this and I know that the unions do as

well. And I think there’s a lot of good input that can be had from all parties. Wage theft. We

decided at the last meeting not to address that issue as a body. Mr. Hernandez spoke to it today

and the statement that she made that I understood was that we should not be pursuing straight up

preemption and getting rid of all of the ordinances. I had a bill last year, I think you probably

recognized that, because you were looking at me during your testimony, and we’ve talked about,

in the legislature at various times, pursuing it. Again, I don’t consider that to be a proper

characterization of the bill in the sense that, while it did preempt, it also created a new system.

And I know that for instance, Dr. Templin, and I think yourself in some of your comments,

indicated a certain sympathy for avoiding patchwork regulations if there was what you would

consider to be a reasonable standard across the state. So taking that into account, the fact that

avoiding a patchwork is a reasonable goal, the system offered was very similar to what is offered

in the three jurisdictions.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Yet it would provide that relief to workers in the other 64 counties. Now we have 3

counties that provide some relief to workers and 64 counties that are in a “no-man’s land.” The

bill said, let’s take it to small claims court which can handle, which is equipped and which we

already pay for as taxpayers that can handle these claims. We lowered the claim to $50 so you

only had to pay $50 to do it, rather than the usual that you would have to pay $250 or whatever it

normally is, $200 or $150, whatever the amount is to take a wage theft claim. And if you were

successful as an employee you got two times your wages. And it allowed local governments if

they so wished to join the individual at the hearing and if they wanted to pay for an assistant to

help that individual, and they could even pay the filing fee if they wanted to, if that was

something they felt was important to do. And so I guess I don’t understand what’s the objection

to that? I’ll offer that to Ms. Hernandez, because I will tell you that there are those, I heard from

many folks who had the vigor that you had and I appreciate that. That’s what this system’s all

about.

It’s what democracy is all about. But, genuinely, what is the objection? Because to me

what I just described is the system that would make it statewide. It’s not dissimilar to what

we’re talking about in the 3 counties that exist, other than the fact that you have the small claims

court handling it rather than some individual that is an employee of the local government. Yes

ma’am.

CYNTHIA HERNANDEZ: First of all, I certainly agree that we need a statewide mechanism

to solve the problem of wage theft. And until the state actually comes up with a solution, I think

it is important for local governments to be able to enact these wage theft ordinances because as

we’re seeing, it’s helping many, many people throughout these counties recover lots of money


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that obviously not only benefits themselves and their families, but certainly their employers and

the local economy, because it’s money that’s circulating. And I think, just to answer your

question, I think the issue is in, and we’ve done a lot of research looking at small claims court,

and initially, before we’ve looked at passing the Miami-Dade wage theft ordinance, we looked at

the small claims court. And what we found was that it is overly burdened with cases. It is a very

lengthy process for many workers who cannot afford to take that time to recover their wages.

And so I think the biggest concern is the length of time that the small claims court takes and also

throughout our state we are seeing that our court cases are over-burdened. And so I don’t think

that resolving wage theft cases through the small claims court is adequate because these are

people who need money right away. These are people who have not been paid for work. I mean,

I can’t imagine what it would be like for me if I didn’t receive my paycheck. And so it’s not the

most effective process of getting the money back to workers. And that was the objection.

SENATOR BRADLEY: Okay. I will tell you Dr. Templin that if the only objection is that you

think it takes a little bit longer to go through small claims court than to do a local administrative

process, that objection is not commensurate with the venom of the objection to the law from the

labor side. I’ll just tell you because that is a minor thing in the scheme of things – objection to

what we’re trying to achieve. But I think Dr. Templin may have had a …

DR. TEMPLIN: Just right.

CHRIS HART: Just so you know we’re at the 5 minute mark. So we’ll allow Dr. Templin to

respond.

DR. TEMPLIN: Senator Bradley really, I think everybody that watched it, is aware, that you

led a Herculean effort to try to tackle something and carried the ball further down the field than


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anyone that has looked at this issue over the past 3 years. And I think that everyone, all the

communities impacted by this would agree with that. Just in general, the biggest concern is

reliance on the court system at all. And it’s not just time, but it’s also cost. I’m currently

speaking with some of the folks in the business community that you have worked with on this

issue before who are interested in some of the things that are happening in Palm Beach County.

But if you look at the cost, in terms of what they have set up now as a grant program, so

their county legal aid and then the county judge is set up a separate docket just to handle those

cases. But the cost is pretty astronomical. And the grant that was initially provided, I believe

was $100,000, and it only put a dent in the cases. So really, one of the concerns is cost to

taxpayers and employers, because at some point, employers have to shoulder some of that burden

too. But I just felt remiss if someone didn’t point out Senator Bradley’s big effort on that issue.

And there’s a lot of people willing to work with him on this.

CHRIS HART: Dr. Templin, thank you for recognizing that. And Senator Bradley thank you

for your willingness to tackle this tough issue. I know it takes a lot to get elected. Some folks

get elected and they come up here and they coast. And then there’s folks that come up here.

They get elected, they come up here and they tackle issues like this. And obviously this is

important because you can see the emotion that it brings about from folks from all perspectives.

And you know when you get that level of emotion that you’re really on to something that needs

to be addressed. If you’d like to make a final comment about that, I’d certainly like you to have

time.

SENATOR ROB BRADLEY: I don’t want to monopolize too much of everybody’s time. And

I appreciate the generosity in offering that. And I just want to tell Ms. Hernandez and Dr.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Templin and all of you that I’m probably not running that bill this year. I doubt I am because

we’ve got a lot of other things we’re having to deal with. But I would suggest there may be

some other Senator that would be running that bill. I don’t know for sure. But to the extent, I

truly want to find a solution and my only “ask” is that we take down the temperature on all sides

as we move forward. Because I do think that we’ve got to here, and we were so close, that it

didn’t justify the temperature in that everybody had moved to. And I think that’s what the

political process is all about. And listen, politics is a full contact sport. We all get it and we all

understand it and we all know what we – eyes wide open – going into these things. And I don’t

begrudge anyone being a firm advocate for whatever side they believe in. But that would be my

only suggestion going forward. Thank you.

CHRIS HART: Thank you Senator. Mr. Carpenter, for the next 5 minutes the floor is yours sir.

WALTER CARPENTER: Good morning. Walter Carpenter. I also want to thank each one

of you for appearing here this morning and testifying. Dr. Templin, just a clarifying question. I

understood that you are in favor of state preemption with regard to some of the benefit issues that

we’re talking about. If preempted you would be in favor of some type of mandatory minimum

standards?

DR. TEMPLIN: The ideal scenario would be the State to tackle, what really is a statewide

problem without relying on local governments to do it. However, until the state does that. The

preemption legislation that we’ve seen over the last 3 or 4 years here in Tallahassee has all been,

we want to preempt now, figure out later. And in some ways that’s what the bill creating this

task force did. The task force was created in the same legislation that preempted local

governments. So the decision was made, we’re going to preempt now and figure it out later. We


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

believe it would be much more helpful to the workers and the customers and the employers

around the state to figure it out first, you know, get something in place, and then move to make

that the, you know, I can’t think of the word, you know the word I’m looking for, but the venue

of state law as opposed to local ordinance.

WALTER CARPENTER: Dr. Weissert, as contrast, are you favor of state preemption, but

rather than mandatory standards, that there just be some type of oversight by the state in these

areas?

DR. WEISSERT: Yes. (inaudible) in this particular area. But in general, yeah. I think that

local governments are the governments that are closest to the people and what we’ve seen in the

areas we’ve done and this is in political science research all over, there’s a lot of innovation at

local government level and sometimes the state can come in and squash the innovation with the

best of intentions. So what we recommend in the pension areas particularly is state-oversight, in

this sense, collecting data. We think it’s very important in some of these issues to let the public

know what’s going on and again, the pension area is clearly an obvious one. So collecting of

data, making it available. I know Senator Bradley had a bill last year about providing uniformity

to the information. And this would apply across other areas. So I think you know, letting the

public know what their local governments are doing. I would never say “never” to preemptions,

but I think as a general rule, I agree that it’s, there’s a lot of value in local government and I

think there’s a tendency sometime for people to come to state capitols and want to solve a

problem as a result make things worse.

WALTER CARPENTER: Mr. McQueen as a panelist, you’re the only one I would probably

classify as a small independent business. How many employees do you have?


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

RICARDO MCQUEEN: Five employees presently, sir.

TIME STAMP: 90 MINUTES

WALTER CARPENTER: And if you’re willing to answer, what is your policy on paid time

off within your small business?

RICARDO MCQUEEN: At present I believe that because of my area of specialty having to do

with public health and making sure that the community is safe from a health stand point, I

believe that persons who work should have the time to rejuvenate, to make sure that there’s no

ailments or sickness that may encounter, that when they come into the workplace can be a major

recourse for the public. My interest is strictly having to do with public safety.

WALTER CARPENTER: I’d be interested in what your personal policy is within your small

business company. A general question to all the panelists and who would want to respond.

Overwhelming testimony relative to PTO particularly when sick has been in the area of food

handling and restaurants. Any thoughts with regards to panelists in that area as to whether it

would be appropriate from a trial standpoint to carve out that type of industry within the state of

Florida for some type of state preemption and specific requirements on that industry as opposed

to all businesses, because overwhelming testimony has been in that area of food handlers?

DR. APPLEBAUM: Well as Ricardo has already pointed out, there are many things that

businesses do not measure. One of things they do not measure are the costs of what he called

“presenteeism.” What happens to productivity in your business when employees come in sick?

So I think it goes far beyond food service. Food service is the one all can relate to because it has

the possibility of making all of us sick. So I think it is the most dramatic. But I think this is an

issue across the board. You’re a mother with a sick child and you have to decide whether to send


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

that kid to school sick or not. And we know mothers who do not have any paid sick days

whatever their industry is are much more likely to send that child to school sick, making other

children sick. My view is that there is a public health issue and there’s a taxpayer issue, because

a lot of the children who will get sick, a lot of the people who do get sick are on Medicaid,

they’re on the state CHIP program and I think we want to protect their health. I think the public

health issue is the most important. But I also think that we need to take into account that

taxpayers are subsidizing these poor employment policies by having to pick up the pieces when

people are sick when they use the emergency room and their children go to school sick and when

they infect other people.

WALTER CARPENTER: Quick question Mr. McQueen.

CHRIS HART: Mr. Carpenter, I think you had someone answer that initial question and then

I’ll allow you to field that last question and then that will conclude your time. Yes. Dr.

Templin, if you’d like to answer the initial question.

DR. TEMPLIN: Just very quickly, the Florida AFL-CIO we’ve actually had a resolution passed

by our delegate body at our biannual convention saying that this should be seen as a right of

workers here in the state of Florida. That in the state of Florida if you work, you’re an employee

and you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, but when you’re sick you don’t have to

make that decision, no matter what your job is, to either come to work sick or take care of your

friends and family that are sick, or lose your job. And just, you know, I think that when we saw

the Family Medical Leave Act, I mean I was a child, but you know, I’ve studied it and there was

the same kind of reaction. There was the same type of knee-jerk reaction to, you know, this is

kind of crazy, we can’t do this, this is too expensive. Even when, if you go back historically and


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

you look at when they were talking about ending child labor and getting kids out of work

factories and into schools, there was this kind of knee-jerk reaction that it would be devastating.

So, we see this as just the next front in continuing to build a better, stronger middle class, a

better, stronger economy that everybody should be afforded this basic benefit of just some, just

you know, just a minimum of some earned sick time.

CHRIS HART: Mr. Carpenter, a final question.

WALTER CARPENTER: Sure. And I don’t want to take much time but just ask Mr.

McQueen, and I’m personal because I’m from Orange County, Orlando, and there’s some

statistical information you put in your paper that if you would provide the back-up source data

for that I’d appreciate it. You stated 46% of Orange County workers don’t have access to sick

time, but in food service that number’s as high as 88%. You don’t have to answer unless you

want to but if you’d just submit the source documentation for that since I’m from Orange

County, I’d be interested in that.

RICARDO MCQUEEN: I did bring copies along with me. And for the record I want to also

say that in my particular business, we’re the ones to do the training. And I’m an administrator, a

food safety administrator, that is what my company does is actually train individuals on how to

serve food safely. And one of the things that I want to mention today is a part of that training is

that I must make sure that they are aware of what the food code is. And the food code that we

have to adhere to is that any individual that has any type of symptoms, such as diarrhea,

headaches, vomiting, and fever, are not to report to work. And it is interesting that I have to

make sure in all of my deliberations, in terms of qualifying persons to work in the industry that I


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

must indicate to them that is the food safety law that you cannot go to work if you’re

experiencing any of those illnesses.

CHRIS HART: Thank you for that clarification Mr. McQueen. Mr. Carpenter, thank you for

that set of questions. Outstanding. Mr. Clyne, the floor is yours.

JEFF CLYNE: Thank you. Jeff Clyne here. And I too want to thank the panel for your

impassioned testimony. It’s very, very helpful and insightful. And I’m not going to ask as deep

a question as Representative Wood did over there, but I am curious Dr. Applebaum. The

Connecticut law stated, I’m sorry. San Francisco adopted a somewhat different requirement.

Businesses with 50 or more employees were required to provide 9 paid sick days. Small

employers, more than 15 employees need to provide 5 paid sick days. What would you say is a

minimum, if it was a perfect world, a minimum employee head-count to require paid sick days?

DR. APPLEBAUM: Well since these sick days are earned, my personal view is that there really

should not be a minimum. The states that have the paid family leave, for example, have no

minimums. All workers become eligible very quickly. The requirements in terms of hours

worked and so on make it possible within a short period of time for even part-time workers to

qualify and we do not find examples of abuse. We do not find employers trying to roll these

things back. They are very contentious before they are put in place. I understand that if you do

not have a history with your own employees or with your part-time employees of having the paid

sick days, having the paid family leave, that you would be concerned about abuse. That’s

basically what the issue tends to be. Or you would be concerned about you’re going to cover the

work. But what we have found is that virtually all employers have to deal with these issues and

in food service, and in retail, once you have these rules in place, what employers do is that they


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

facilitate the swapping of shifts. So, my personal view, is that the experience we have indicates

that these carve-outs are unnecessary. They generally come about as part of a political process.

There’s a strong reaction which I can understand from employers who don’t have the experience,

and there is a very strong reaction from business lobbyists. My own experience, before coming

to the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington three years ago, I was a professor at

Rutgers University and the Director there of the Center for Women and Work. And in that

capacity, I spoke to many, many businesses in the state. In fact, it’s one of the things I liked best

about my job. We don’t only do surveys, we always go out and talk to employers to see, down

on the ground, how is it working, how did you manage, what did you do? Because numbers are

just numbers, you know. We like to tell the story. We like to understand what’s happening.

And, we discovered that when employers understand what’s involved, once they’ve had

experience with it, in fact, they find it hasn’t, it has very little impact on business operations at

all. And those business, for example, hospitals or nursing homes, where, in fact, you have a lot

of young women, they’re likely to have children, they’re likely to have to take time off. They

have long-established methods for handling this. A lot of businesses that have part-time

employees have a relatively easy time of offering additional hours. They know which employees

would like to have additional hours. They know who they can call in, so it takes a little bit of

adjustment, but it turns out not to be a major impact on business operations. My own view is, no

carve-outs are best. I understand the political process and sometimes to get to, as was pointed

out earlier, to get something good, you have to say okay, we’re not going for the best, but we’ll

move here and we’ll see if we can’t move further later.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

JEFF CLYNE: Thank you. That was a good answer. Certainly, when you read these laws,

and we heard a little testimony from public comment back in October, the natural question to ask

is, businesses that have 5 or less employees, those employees don’t get sick, I guess. So it

doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me to have a number if you’re going to do it. Mr. McQueen

and Dr. Applebaum, I’m not going to ask you for a comment on this but you have stated that

research has shown minimal impact on profitability and you just said it again. But, Mr.

McQueen, if the cost is negligible, why in your opinion don’t all restaurants do it?

RICARDO MCQUEEN: I think it has a lot to do with revenue. I think a lot of restaurants tend

to pay more attention looking at this particular issue having to affect the bottom line. And the

panel that’s before you has presented information that there states already involved in sick time

that has not seen this issue of the bottom line being effected. I truly, having researched it, find a

lot of restaurants do not want to do it because they feel that there will be an enormous effect on

the bottom line.

JEFF CLYNE: I have one other comment. Dr. Templin I’d like to hear from you on this. In

our business we do what are called root/cause analysis. When we have a failure in some way, we

get to the root of it. My opinion here is that the issue is that there’s too many people chasing too

many low-paying jobs. Would you agree with that?

DR. TEMPLIN: Are there too many people chasing low-paying jobs?

JEFF CLYNE: Yes.

DR. TEMPLIN: Well, we have definitely seen in the state of Florida individual incomes have

declined. We believe, and this is a conversation for again, maybe we could get together with

Representative Wood and Professor Holcombe. But, we believe, and the data indicates that


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

some of the economic policies that the state has pursued over the last decade have created a

boom in the lower wage service industry market creating a demand for those jobs. And we think

that people have filled that demand while simultaneously we have lost almost our entire

manufacturing sector, which, believe it or not, was actually quite robust in the state. We believe,

that because of the housing bubble, we lost a lot of good, high-skill, construction and building

trade jobs that, where those folks have gone in the service sector of the economy. And actually,

if you just look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data monthly, you can watch this shift over time

and that’s why when people talk about the unemployment rate as an indicator of the health of our

economy I often kind of bristle at that because what I think a better indicator is the long-term

unemployment rate and the under-employment rate. We have a lot of people that were making

more money in different types of jobs that are now in lower income jobs. So, I think you’ve seen

that trend across the state for a decade or more. Yes sir.

JEFF CLYNE: Agreed. Recently on trip to Minot, North Dakota a McDonald’s restaurant

there was only open in the afternoon drive-through. And the reason that it was only open for

drive-through was because they couldn’t hire the employees to work in the restaurant because of

the boom in the oil business. The employees that are working in those fast-food restaurants

they’re starting them at $15 and $16 an hour with benefits. And my point is that I think that, in

general, I want to make this statement because I have the opportunity that we need to step back

as a country and as a nation and look at what we’re doing to the manufacturing sector in terms of

policies that are coming out of the agencies, not out of the halls of congress, but out of the

agencies that were created by the halls of congress, that’s creating the issues that we’re talking

about here. Because when you have fewer employees chasing more jobs TIME STAMP:


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

105:00 MINUTES than you have employees, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because

it would be free market, and the market would take care of it. And I would just caution you, or

advise you, the next time you go to the polls, take a look at that because that’s where it starts.

And thank you very much Mr. Chairman.

CHRIS HART: Thank you Mr. Clyne. Mr. Kimbrough the floor is yours sir.

ART KIMBROUGH: Thank you Mr. Chairman. First of all I want to thank this esteemed panel.

You’ve got some great experts. Your testimony is wonderful. A lot of, lot of information and data

here. But I’d also like to call out the experts with a little bit of warning, that for all of the great

information none of you can touch the power of the passion of Ms. Lewis for bringing it,

personalizing exactly what the issue is before us. Ms. Lewis, I want to thank you very much for

expressing your experiences in this environment to make it, as we talked about, real and legitimate.

My name again is Art Kimbrough. Just as a way of background, I own a funeral home company. We

have 30 employees in 3 states and 4 locations, one of them here in Tallahassee. This particular

location has 12 employees, 7 of which are full-time and 5 of which are part-time. Of those full time

workers, I have a sick-leave policy. And I think it’s just good business, good practice. If I want to

compete in this local marketplace, I need employees who feel a commitment to our business. And if

I don’t commit to them, they’re certainly not going to commit to me. My part-time employees. It’s

interesting, and this may be unique to our business a little bit, most of our part-time employees work

anywhere from 2 to 15 hours a week. Many of them are retired former ministers and others and we

work a different kind of an on-call schedule. Because trust me, when your family’s lost a loved one

and you want that service, you don’t care about the hours worked of the other people that are there.

You want to have that experience unencumbered by the burdens of the employees and others that are

there. We don’t really have an issue with sick leave for our part-time employees because that’s not


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

part of their expectation or really their desire. So I will admit that I’m not in the restaurant business.

I’m not dealing with the same kinds of shift issues and scheduling issues and demand for people that

the restaurant issues are dealing with. So with that context what I want to address is I think, take us

back Mr. Chairman to what I see as the fundamental question. House Bill 655 has already

established preemption as part of that over employer sponsored benefits. As part of that legislation

this committee was formed to then look at as stated in the question, sort of re-ask the question:

Should the state preempt, and if it should why, and are there other things that could be done. Dr.

Templin and I are going to address your comment, and I will respectfully disagree with you on one

perspective in that you had indicated the preference would be for a state-wide solution to this rather

than a patch-work quilt of varying policies that make it complicated for all of us to deal with

throughout the state. And I absolutely feel that that’s a …if we were to go down that path, I think

that’s a better solution because if I’ve got locations all over the state in different counties, I’m my

own HR person. I don’t have enough time already. The burden on me isn’t providing the sick-leave.

The burden on me is in administering the enforcements and the regulations that go with that. But I

do believe that when a movement starts progressing, that starts creating this patchwork that it’s best

to call a time-out and then have these kinds of conversations to find out what the root cause is Jeff,

and then go at a larger solution than just a set of fragmented solutions. So I appreciate the debate,

but I think that what I’m hearing, what I’m hearing here is, besides the conversation about

preemption, yes or no and why, we’re dealing with public health issues, not just sick leave. I mean

sick leave to me, I think is the symptom we’re discussing here, not the cause. You’ve got a public

health issue. You’ve got an economic issue of a great divide between high and low wage employees

that in a service economy that we’re struggling for what and are finding ways to fix that. And I think

there are other significant issues that are being masked around a discussion about sick leave itself. I


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

mean sick leave is one of the weapons in a tool-kit to address the larger question. So I’d like to

throw open to several of our experts here how we go about finding solutions to these bigger questions

without coming at these little nibbling areas like this to try to solve a big problem with what may not

be the right solution. And I’ll start with Dr. Templin and then anybody else.

CHRIS HART: And at that point, that will take our 5 minutes with Mr. Kimbrough but please, I do

want to ask the panelists, because it’s a big question. Take as much time as you like individually to

respond to Mr. Kimbrough’s question. Thank you.

DR. TEMPLIN: Just to be as concise as possible. The Florida AFL-CIO and our affiliates have

been pursuing for a long time now, economic policies here in the state that preference wages and

work so as opposed to continuing to incentivize business activity through tax breaks, incentives, et

cetera. We’d like to see a much more robust set of wage policies to increase wages throughout the

state. We’d like to see tax policy that preferences the infrastructure as a way to create jobs. For

example, Representative Wood, Senator Bradley are being asked now to talk about a $500 million

surplus. We don’t believe there is a surplus at all because we’re still funded at 50th in the nation

when it comes to K through 12 spending, infrastructure spending, and environmental protection.

Until we kick up a notch our ability to provide essential services and infrastructure needs to our

citizens, we don’t have a surplus. So in general, we just believe that the focus should be on making

investments in the work force, increasing wages, and again though, this is a really fundamental

philosophical question in that would probably be best handled, I really hope that this big

conversation I’m trying to put together when this is all over really comes to pass because it’s going to

be very exciting. But in general, that would be my very quick answer.

DR. APPLEBAUM: So I do agree with what Rich has to say. And I would say that nationally

there is a conversation about economic security, a general agenda around economic security


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

issues. But I don’t think that we’re going to be able to pass some huge agenda. I think we’re

going to have to take planks in it a piece at time. And I do think that paid sick days is an

important plank. But I want to comment on your initial opening statement if you don’t mind. So

as I said, we go around the state and we talk to small businesses. I have two parts to the answer

for you. And one of them is a small family-owned grocery. And we spoke to the manager there.

And groceries, as you may already know, very few employees are full-time. The bulk of the

employees are part-time and he has about 30 high school and college kids who work 10 hours a

week, only on Saturday, two days after school for 3 hours each. He told us that before this law

passed he’d testified against it for the Chamber. He was their star small business, “this is going

to be horrible” person. And now we came to interview him. He has all of these kids and so on.

And we said, and so how is it affecting your business operations? And he hemmed and he

hawed, and he said, “Well, I could lie to you, but in fact, it’s had almost no effect.” Because the

answer is, that when kids can’t come in, they don’t want to lose their shift, they don’t want to be

the part-time worker that you never call again, they talk to each other and they just switch shifts.

I mean it’s been very little of an effort for him. The only difference is, because you know, for

the unemployment insurance law you have to track employee hours anyway. And so the only

difference for him is to count up, have they hit the number of hours where they’ve earned even

one hour of paid sick time. And he has 30 of these kids and it takes him 10 to 20 minutes a week

to do it. So he was expecting much worse. But you have a different situation so let me just

make a distinction between part-time workers and per diem workers. So in the state of

Connecticut they have exempted, you don’t have to do this for per diem workers. They’re not

covered by the law. So we visited nursing homes which have often, you know, a fair number of


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

non-part-time like the kids, but people working 30 hours a week, let’s say. There are people with

regular schedules, they regularly work 30 hours a week. They are covered by the law. But

you’re a nursing home. You could have an emergency, just like you described. You could have

an emergency. They have high level nurses, nurse practitioners on call. If an emergency arises,

they call these folks in; they come in on that moment. They don’t have a regular schedule. They

are not covered. We’ve talked to a performance hall that puts on, a performing arts venue type

of place. They have 30 employees of their own. Those are all covered. But when they put on a

show, they might hire 45 construction workers, other people, set makers, light makers, whatever.

I don’t know what they do there. Those per diem workers are not covered by the law. So I think

that is one way of looking at it. Part-time workers who have a regular job with you do need the

same kinds of paid sick days earned over a longer period of time but the same situation as your

full-time workers. But those people that you call in because now something has happened and

you need them this day, and if they can’t come you have a list of those people, you don’t just

have one. And if the first one can’t come, you call the second one. That’s the whole point of a

per diem worker is they come if they’re not scheduled somewhere else. But you have to have a

long enough list that you can get somebody to cover. And I think that might be a way of

handling the situation that you’re concerned about.

1:56:20

DR. WEISSERT: I would like to add one thing. I’m a political scientist so I worry about

governmental relations. The state of Florida several years ago had something called the State

Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. And the purpose of that was to bring

together state officials and local officials and people to talk about some of these issues that


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

you’re talking about. The big issues, what are the really big issues that are facing us and what

are the impacts of these going to be? The other thing that Commission did was, the staff

estimated the cost of mandates so that every bill that was introduced had to have a cost factor

coming from the staff. It was cut several years ago for probably fiscal reasons and other reasons.

But I think something like that makes sense too. It provides a venue. Because although, you

know there are lots of good ideas and these are certainly wonderful ideas, there are some

governmental kinds of aspects too. Who is going to do it? What governments are preempted?

How much is this going to cost? Who can do it best? And also it serves a function of sharing

ideas. So I think in my ideal world I think it affects us as well, we would bring back that panel

and we would give them some opportunity to have dialog, to look at long term issues, and to

really do estimates of the impact of some of these proposals on local government.

GLORIA LEWIS: I’m going to answer that question that you said. We need prevention. Like

you said, we’re trying to get to the, trying to put the sick pay… The bottom line is poverty.

Poverty is why all of this is happening. The low income jobs, somebody has to do it. The wages

that we’re being paid is too low to be able to buy a home, to be able to pay for insurance.

There’s so much that we can’t do because of what we’re being paid. So what happens, you end

on government assistance programs which is costing this country so much money that nobody

can understand why this country is in such a crisis. It’s poverty. How are you going to pick the

poor man up? If you help me, you own the business. I work in the business. I come from a

country where it didn’t matter if you picked up garbage, do it the best you can. If you’ve got to

pick up garbage, be the best garbage man that is out there. I don’t want nothing from this

country. I came into this country with the intentions of giving something back. Right now, as I


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

struggle, I go out for the last 13 months I cook 120 meals every Sunday and I drive around

Broward County and I feed the homeless out of my pocket, even with all of my struggles. This

country is a great country. It has so much potential. But we have to pick the poor man up. It

doesn’t come from the top. It comes from the bottom. Unless we come with a solution to

poverty, the entitlement programs because of poverty is going to demolish this country. We

have to get a middle ground. We have to find solutions, more affordable housing. The poor, low

income jobs has to be done. Somebody got to do it. So either help us to help ourselves, or the

bottom line is everybody’s going to pay. The tax is going to go up. You’re going to put all of

this money into all of these programs and everybody’s paying. The rich is who’s paying because

guess what. The poor people don’t have it. Don’t give them the fish. Teach us how. Open up

the playing field. Help us to go get it on our own. I mean, I’m a waitress and I can tell you right

now, I don’t need anybody to praise me. I haven’t seen any waitress do what I do. And I don’t

want anything.


What I’m saying is I am fighting for the poor man, people like me that came here. We don’t

want anything. All we want is to open up a way. Help us. I don’t want no entitlement program.

If I have to live on the streets I’m going back to my country. Let my family take care of me.

Although I paid my money into the taxes I have paid twenty-odd years into this country and I

don’t have anything. If I go back to my country right now I might not get the best insurance.

But guess what. I will get something. If I go to a job and I work more than a year, I’ll go get

sick pay, I will get vacation pay. I don’t have anything here. But I’ve put more years in the

workforce here than I’ve put there. And I know that I can make a difference. But like I said,


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

poverty, nobody’s speaking for us. Nobody. Because the bottom line is, we’ve got to worry

about the bills, worry about the kids, worry about....so. And nobody listens to us. It’s like, you

know what I mean? All these logistics, and everybody is speaking. But really, I mean, come on,

forget the logistics. We need voices like mine. We need us to get out of that fear factor. This is

why so many people are on drugs, so many people are doing, selling illegal drugs. All of it

comes back to poverty. And all of it is killing this country. All the panel here please somebody,

do something. Anybody do something. I mean I don’t care which task force, how many task

force. The entitlement program need reform. We need to find solutions for poverty. If we find a

solution for poverty, all of this here is going to go away. All of it is going to go away.

CHRIS HART: So you asked for a comprehensive overview, and you are getting it Mr.

Kimbrough. I will say this. I completely agree with you. I think we need to look at entitlement

reform. I think that that is an issue that’s time is just past us by.

GLORIA LEWIS: I’ve sent letters to the president already. I’ve written every congressmen,

about 30, 40 of them. No response to my letters.

CHRIS HART: Continue to voice that concern. Because if you, seriously, it takes a lot of

voices to get the attention of our elected officials. You just have to keep on keeping on. If you

take a look at what’s happening with entitlements, they’ve continued to grow since 2001. When

you look at Social Security disability, it’s increased by 58% since that time. When you take a

look at the eligibility requirements, if you take a look at all of the programs and how those

programs work or do not work in many cases to actually support the individuals who are there, I

can tell you that I think in many cases I think our federal government has trapped some of the

people in those programs. And I think that that is the worst thing that we could ever do in this


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

country. You’re right. There are people that need help. We have the social security net, or

social safety net in place. But it can’t trap people.

GLORIA LEWIS: It is a trap right now.

CHRIS HART: It is a trap. Ms. Lewis, I completely agree with you. It is a complete trap right

now.

GLORIA LEWIS: (inaudible) So, once they get here now-they lose the program. And this

program has been in place for too many years. They need reform. They’re not working right.

Right now it’s a joke. And the poor people are laughing at you guys. I’m going to tell you right

now. They’re laughing. Because you are not helping them. All you’re doing is enabling them,

enabling them. When really they want to help themselves but the process is preventing them

from helping themselves because. Look at the income. I mean the incomes. The brackets are

set for a certain level. Costs of living have went up. But nobody has went and reformed the

system to move according to inflation. So what do you get? You know, you manipulate the

system and manipulate you guys and laughing at you guys actually. The people on entitlement

programs are smarter than all the politicians.

CHRIS HART: So, we are way afield of this task force’s mission. But it’s great conversation.

I do agree with you on the entitlements. Mr. McQueen, did you have a statement to Mr.

Kimbrough’s questions.

RICARDO MCQUEEN: Yes. I just wanted to mention my perspective here is something to

deal with public safety. And so, when we look at entitlements they all boil back to poverty like

Gloria mentioned. But I want to make sure that when I’m asked to go there and administer food

safety training, there are certain guidelines that I must follow. And one of them is, I must tell the


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

persons who are taking these exams that if they experience any type illness they cannot go to

work. Also, one of the things I always say to the owners, and the restaurant owners, is that either

you pay now, or you will pay later. Because when someone spreads a communicable disease in

your establishment, the costs of what you’re going to have to incur to try to deal with all of the

issues that will come behind that, is going to be astronomical. And we need to look at that. And

I just want to interject that before I finish today.

CHRIS HART: Thank you. Ms. Hernandez.

CYNTHIA HERNANDEZ: I’d like to just quickly add some anecdotal stories. I am a mother

and fortunately I am a state employee so I have the opportunity of having paid sick days. As a

mother, I know many mothers out there who do not have paid sick time. And so what happens is

that, they cannot afford to take their children out of school and take the day off of work. So they

send their children to school sick. What happens as a result of that is in that my son gets sick.

His public school teacher is sick. And then that public school teacher goes home and gets her

family sick. So this issue right here…I just want to state that it’s not an issue that impacts just

sick people, right? It’s an issue that has ripple effects over their employers, their family

members, our communities, and certainly our economies. So ignoring this issue has a serious

health impact for our state. So I’m really happy that we’re looking at this issue, because it’s an

issue that can no longer be ignored.

CHRIS HART: Thank you. Mr. Madtes are you ready for your 5 minutes?

ANDY MADTES: I don’t know about after that. I don’t think I could follow up on that. But I

would just like to first of all thank the panel for being here today. And Ms. Lewis thank you

very much for your heartfelt testimony. I work a lot with folks in your industry representing


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

them down in south Florida and I so appreciate what you had to say here today. You know I

think that, you know this is a challenging issue for all of us and my hope is that when we put

together a final report that it’s going to be a report that’s fair and balanced. And I have no reason

to believe that it will not be. But there’s passion on both sides of the issue. First of all you have

the business community which I think sees a boogeyman when it comes to these policies,

particularly sick day policy. How’s it going to affect my business? And I understand that,

because without prospering businesses, you cannot have a thriving community because workers

and businesses are not mutually exclusive. They need to work together. It all needs to work

together. Our congress does not have a 9 percent approval rating for no reason. It has a 9

percent approval rating because they cannot find a middle ground on anything. And what it’s

doing to our country is paralyzing our ability to move forward. And it’s paralyzing our ability to

be able to pass policies that work for both sides. And I think that this task force is being

presented with a great opportunity to come up with a report that, hopefully, we can find some

solutions to this problem. The fact of the matter is that, you know, the sick day policy, I can tell

you right now. When I came to south Florida in 1994 from that place called the northeast, most

of the collective agreements I had did not have sick days and over time we were able to bargain

sick day policies into our agreements. And the big question I get from my members now is, can

I carry them over because I don’t intend to use them. Of course there is always a lot of back and

forth with employers on that issue. But nevertheless, sick days I believe are a good safety net.

And when the last panel was here I asked a very pointed question, I believe it was of Mrs.

Padgett who represents the retail industry, and asked her, “Do most of the business that you

represent provide sick days?” And her answer was, I believe it was “yes.” She didn’t know


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

about all of them. And many of the panelists stated that they provided sick days for their

employees. The policy was intended to be employers who did not provide sick days, especially

in the restaurant business. The majority of restaurant workers in the state of Florida are tipped

workers, the majority. A little bit different in the hotel, because it varies, and in resorts it varies

because you have student departments, banquet departments, I mean student departments, cooks,

dishwashers. But in the restaurant industry they’re mostly tipped workers. And tipped workers

come to work because they live off their tips. They don’t live off their minimum wage. And

they’re come to work. And they’re going to use those sick days as a safety net for when that day

comes when they’re violently ill, which happens, they’re flus going around. Look what’s going

on at Princeton University right now. There’s a meningitis outbreak and they have to give over,

I think it’s 8000 people, are going to need to be vaccinated. These things can happen and

possibly they can be prevented. On wage theft. I work somewhat on the outside with Cynthia

and her organization did a marvelous job on wage theft. I worked with some of the elected

officials. The cost to the counties is minimal as far as what it cost them to administer the wage

theft. The results have been phenomenal. And let’s face it, most of the businesses in the state of

Florida do not rip off their workers. They’re honest, law-abiding corporations. It’s going after

those who’ve decided they’re going to rip off the most vulnerable and that’s what it was intended

for. I actually had a chance to interact with the Mayor of Miami-Dade County. He was not for it

when he was a Commissioner, but has not become a big issue to him right now. He’s got other

fish on his plate that he has to deal with. But, in my speaking to him, he believes that it’s

working fine and he has no reason to believe it needs to be overturned. The living wage, I can

tell you right now, I deal directly on living wage issues down in Broward County. And the living


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

wage has helped many people. Folks aren’t getting rich off $11.33 an hour. It’s just not

happening. However, it does give them a leg up. It does help them a little bit, and it’ll help

move them forward. Now on the question of why we’re here, because I really don’t have any

pointed….the group has articulated all the points that have been made, so I don’t have any direct

questions for them, because I do agree with many of them. Go figure. Is this whole issue about

preemption? And if the state could come up with a solution to set the floor and allow the local

governments to possibly set a ceiling if they’d like too, that would be great. Let’s be real about

this. If the state doesn’t set the floor at which a lot of the people who are on the other side of this

issue or are who are here today do not agree with it, then, you know, preemption is not an option.

And it’s my belief, like an old-timer once said many years back and some of my friends on the

other side of the aisle might not agree with this, is “all politics is local.” And I believe that for

local governments, it should be up to them. That’s why they’re elected. That’s why they have a

responsibility to their constituents to be able to make these decisions. What might be good in

south Miami-Dade may not work for a government in northern Florida. But the fact of the

matter is local governments should be allowed to make their decisions when it comes to these

issues. The state doesn’t like it when the federal government comes in and tells them what to do.

There’s a number of examples as to recently, how that’s occurred. But my belief that unless we

can figure out between the state and the local governments a balance that we can strike, that

preemption should not happen or occur. Thank you.

CHRIS HART: Thank you Mr. Madtes. Dr. Holcombe you are recognized.

DR. HOLCOMBE: Thank you Mr. Chairman. A lot of the questions and issues that I had have

been raised by other questioners. I guess that’s what happens when you’re last on the agenda.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

But to pick up an issue that we’ve talked about a little bit before, a few of you, and I guess in

particular I’m thinking of Mr. McQueen and Dr. Applebaum. In your testimonies, both of you

directly said, and maybe some others of you also suggested, that it’s really in the best interest of

the employer to offer benefits like paid sick leave. And I would think that if that’s the case, you

don’t need to pass a law to mandate it because employers are going to tend to do what’s in their

best interest anyway. And also, we know that most employers are offering paid sick leave right

now. But maybe what’s true for most employers or some employers isn’t true for all employers.

And so it may be in the best interest of most employers to offer paid sick leave, but maybe not

for all employers. If we pass a mandate, then it applies to everybody. And what I’m wondering,

I guess I’ll directly address Mr. McQueen and Dr. Applebaum, but anyone else who has an

opinion. Is it really a good idea to pass mandates like this that’s “one-size-fits-all” when that

may not apply to every employer. And in particular, we have heard a lot about the food industry

and you know, I wonder if maybe it shouldn’t be “one-size-fits-all” but goes employer by

employer, or maybe particular industries ought to be addressed in these policies, not necessarily

all industries.


DR. APPLEBAUM: So, there’s a lot of misinformation out there. The chamber is very good at

telling people just how bad this is going to be. We had that in the states before any of these laws

were passed in those states. The NFIB is out there to tell small businesses that this is going to

destroy your business and as I mentioned, we have spoken to small businesses in Connecticut, I

did it in New Jersey as well both before and after we passed paid family leave. And I attended

many of a hearing like this in the state of New Jersey where the state’s senator who had


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

introduced the legislation had to correct the representatives of the business lobbyists from

misrepresenting what his act would do, and misrepresenting it to their members. I think what we

have discovered is that employers do not have time to do their own research on these topics.

They haven’t had this before. They don’t know what effect it’s going to have on their business

operations. And I can understand that there’s a certain nervousness about doing it. I think that’s

the reason I came here today. I think having a state like Connecticut that has already had this

experience allows us to say something about how it actually affects employers and employees.

And it turns out to be far easier to manage than employers imagine. I do not want to say that it

has no costs for anybody. Those employers that have to have a full complement of workers there

all the time, a hospital, a nursing home, a restaurant, they do have to set up some kind of a

system for being able to deal with this. So there is an initial administrative, figuring it out, “how

am I going to get it done?” But it turns out that it’s not that hard, especially in these industries

where you have lots of part-time employees. People working 30 hours a week, who would be

happy to pick up an extra shift without it going into overtime pay. So I think that we’re talking

here about bare minimum standards. I worked on a project funded by the Russell Sage

Foundation that was called “Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World.” And we looked at the low

wage labor market in 6 different countries. And I just want to tell you one thing. The other

countries were the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Denmark. Would you want to know

what the minimum number across these countries, what the minimum number of required paid

sick days is? Workers in these countries have a minimum of 6 months of paid sick days. And

we are here wondering whether we can afford 5 days as a minimum standard of paid sick days

with employers able to do more and with municipalities, if it suits the values of their tax-payers


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

and their citizens to do more. The one thing that has not been said here is who occupies these

low-wage jobs. Overwhelmingly it is women like Gloria. We are talking about a policy that

affects women, mothers, and their children. I think that it’s a family, it’s not just an economic

issue, it’s a family-values issue. We have made it really difficult for women in this country to be

able to combine being a responsible employee with being a responsible parent. And this I think

is something that really has to change.

DR. HOLCOMBE: That was a pretty long answer. But I take it from your answer, it is a “one-

size-fits-all” type situation, and that the experts like you know better what is good for the

business than the business people themselves.

DR. APPLEBAUM: I would hope that in this great country of ours we could set a minimum

standard of 5, 7, or 9 paid sick days. I cannot imagine any worker who could live without it.

And I cannot imagine any employer who cannot afford it. And that we, as taxpayers, should

subsidize that employer through our emergency rooms, through our CHIP programs, because

they do not want to do it. And I submit to you that when they have the experience with it, when

they learn from that experience, in fact, they don’t object to it. Chris Christie ran against

Governor Corzine saying he was going to roll back paid family leave. But once he got in office

he discovered there is no constituency for rolling back paid family leave. All those employers

who had objected to it before it went into effect out of fear for what it was going to do to their

businesses and out of lack of experience discovered that workers do not abuse it, that their

businesses do not have a major impact from it, and that they were not willing to use any political

capital at all to roll it back. And he never discussed it in his second run for office. So I would


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

submit that this is something….What we are talking about here is so minimal that there is no

employer who this size doesn’t fit.

CHRIS HART: Thank you Dr. Applebaum. I believe Mr. McQueen wanted to answer the

question as well.

RICARDO MCQUEEN: Well from a public safety standpoint, one of the things, having to

work in public safety that we have to try to do is make sure that there is containment. And why I

suggest that rule such as this, a law such as this is done nationally, because if you’re talking

about an individual coming into a restaurant and having come into contact with a disease such as

norovirus, and that particular individual goes to work and spreads that virus within that

establishment, then the worker then spreads it to the patrons who are in that facility, patrons who

will travel out of the region, and then it becomes a national issue. And so I believe that it has to

be something that we do around every aspect, as far as the law is concerned, it needs to effect the

entire nation. Because if something happens here in Florida, it could end up in other parts of the

United States and could become a major issue.

CHRIS HART: Thank you. Would anyone else like to respond to Dr. Holcombe’s final

question there? Dr. Templin.

DR. TEMPLIN: Just in the most direct way possible, I think that there are plenty of areas

where there is, there can be a “one-size-all” and where, I don’t think most people would agree

you should leave it up to the individual business owner to make that determination. You know

businesses are part of the collective commons of our communities. They take advantage of roads

that are collectively paid for. They take advantage of public safety and fire safety that is

collectively paid for. I mean they’re an integral part of that community. And communities have


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

no problem in telling a business owner, “Hey, you can’t dump your toxic waste in this lake

behind this elementary school. We don’t want you to do that.” Now the business owner may

make the decision, wow this would be really profitable for me than having this waste treated and

transported away, but the community has said, no, you can’t do that. And you’re part of our

collective common. I think that could be said of this issue as well. I mean, again, I think our

nation has had a very long history of wrestling with this issue and if you lay it out on a timeline,

the times in our country where we’ve been at are best, and where the economy has thrived, and

where business owners did their best, is when the rights of people that labor and people that work

are looked out for. And I think that most people, and there’s a lot of polling on this particular

issue of sick time, if we’re just going to stick with that, that shows that most people agree yes,

there should be….They’re surprised to find out that people don’t have access to a minimum of

sick days and that they could be faced with the situation that I either come to work sick, or I get

fired. So I think it can be “one-size-fits-all.” I don’t necessarily think it has to be. But what

everybody, it sounds like is saying, is there should be a minimum floor that is “one-size-fits-all”

and then allow local communities to work in conjunction with their business community to

figure out what can take place from there.

CHRIS HART: Anyone else for a final comment to Dr. Holcombe’s question? No. Okay. So

I actually had a few questions as well. We had taken a look at some of the other states and what

they had provided. Admittedly, I think Dr. Applebaum was correct. They were political

solutions which I think you would find in any state, any circumstance. That’s how we work

through the process in our government. So I’m curious to know, and I think I know the answer

based on some of the feedback, but I’d just like to know your thoughts about mandatory unpaid


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

time off, because I’ve seen that in some of those states versus paid time off. And if you could

keep your answers short, because I do have a few other questions that I’d like to ask.

DR. APPLEBAUM: It would be good if we at least had mandatory unpaid time off because

what happens now is that people can be fired for not coming in. What that does is it prevents the

employer from retaliating against an employee. But most people, like Gloria have said, could

not afford to take the time off if it were unpaid. And so I think that we really need to have a

minimum number of paid sick days, so that in fact sick people can afford to stay home when they

are sick.

CHRIS HART: Does anyone have a different opinion than Dr. Applebaum’s?

GLORIA LEWIS: I’m going to speak for the restaurant industry. Actually, not only don’t we

have sick pay, we don’t get paid holiday, we don’t have any vacation pay, nothing. We’re

actually bullied and forced into working holidays. But we don’t get any holiday pay. I mean,

and it’s not even for option. It’s like our families don’t even matter. Thanksgiving and

Christmas comes along the question, before you even open up your mouth, no. But still, we get

the same pay. So what about my family? I’m sorry. I mean, this is across the board. So it is not

bad enough that we don’t get paid when we work the holidays, we don’t even have an option to

get off the holiday. So, I mean the situation, especially in the restaurant industry across the

board, I think is worse than anywhere else. And the restaurant industry is open a majority of

months 365 days a year. So what now, if we create another problem now, because now you are

putting your family at risk, which is bringing another problem which is probably going to end

(inaudible 2:25:50) because here goes. Poverty is playing another role in this situation. So we’re


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

fighting for paid sick days, but it’s a whole lot more that needs to be addressed. You know what

I mean?

CHRIS HART: Others? Okay, the next question I would have for you all is, do you have a

recommendation, and this exists in other states as well, for a tiered system, whereby smaller

employers are either exempted altogether as they’ve done in some cases. And I’ve noticed

sometimes it seems to be 4 or less, and then in Connecticut I think it goes all the way up to 49.

Do you have any thoughts on a tiered system as we’re looking to make recommendations?

DR. APPLEBAUM: I think I’ve already answered that question, but let me just say it again. I

do not think there should be carve-outs. I think that these are earned paid sick days. So if you’re

a very part-time worker, you may have to work many, many weeks or months before you have

any. But I think that every worker should be able to earn the paid sick days. I think that there

should be some reasonable number. If it’s going to be statewide, perhaps a number like 5,

because you have such different communities, provided that local areas could decide that they

wanted to do more. So that would be my opinion on that.

GLORIA LEWIS: I agree with her on the carving. But I would say 7 days as a minimum, and

then according to the employers, earn the extra hours.

CHRIS HART: Okay. Thank you. Ms. Hernandez.

Ms. Hernandez: And I would just quickly add that the majority of businesses in Florida are

small businesses. So agreeing with Dr. Applebaum, the carving out would not be beneficial for

most workers in Florida.

CHRIS HART: Thank you. Others, or did that pretty much encapsulate it? So, Mr. McQueen,

you made a statement. It was a broad statement. I think I saw heads nodding from the panel, but


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

I just wanted to ensure before I took this forward. You said, “Pay now or pay later.” And I think

I saw everyone nodding. When Mr. McQueen said we’ll either pay now or pay later, does that,

and I’ll use the term again, encapsulate what most of you think, or what all of you think on this

issue?

DR. APPLEBAUM: I’m always surprised when I go to talk to businesses about the things that

they do measure and they don’t measure, and the thinks they don’t know how to measure. So

one of the arguments that’s often made, is that these kinds of policies reduce turnover because if

you treat your workers poorly, you say you can’t have any paid sick days, the kid is sick, the

worker says, “That’s it, take your job. I don’t want it anymore.” So we went out to ask about

turnover and what we discovered is that most employers do not know how to calculate it.

When we did our survey, what we have to do is, we have a set of questions, and then we

calculate your turnover costs. And if any of you are interested, I created on the Center for

Economic and Policy Research, a calculator. You can go in with your own wage rates, your own

everything and calculate for yourself what turnover costs. So a retail operation, a national retail

operation with representation here, has over 100 percent turnover. But when we asked about

their turnover costs, because they have over 100 percent turnover, they have a huge staff of

recruiters who are constantly recruiting new employees. These are people with bachelor’s

degrees in HR management and paid $45,000 a year and they don’t count that as part of their

turnover costs. That’s just staff. So what we’ve discovered that the question of absenteeism…

It’s easy to observe absenteeism. You know that employee didn’t show up. But the employee

showed up sick, was working at half-speed, got three more employees sick, they’re working at

half-speed, the employer does not calculate those costs. So I would just submit that there is a lot


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

of costs. “Pay now or pay later,” -- there’s a lot of “pay-later” costs that are simply not

calculated by employers.


CHRIS HART: So a follow-up then. Because I’ve heard this issue today characterized in 3

broad terms: one is a public health issue, one as a family values issue, and then one is an

economic development issue. So “pay-now-pay-later.” A question to all of you is, “Who should

pay?” It’s been deemed a public health issue, a family values issue, an economic development

issue. So then the question is “Who should pay?”

DR. APPLEBAUM: So I think I’ve said before, there are some things that I think should be

social insurance, like unemployment insurance. I do not believe that a single employer should

have to replace the wages of their own laid-off employees. It would be too big of a burden on

any employer.

But there are other things which are a minimum employment standard. No child labor is a

minimum employment standard. Restrictions on what 16-year olds can do when they go to work is a

minimum employment standard. Minimum wage is a minimum employment standard. And I think that a

minimum number of paid sick days is in that category as well. It has huge benefits. The state has an

interest in mandating it because it has huge benefits for taxpayers, public health, and economic

development. But I think that this is something that we have discovered, we have seen, that employers

are well able to handle. It’s not a huge burden to them, I’m not saying it’s cost free, but it’s hot a huge

burden to them. And I think that it is a moral value and it is something that employers should be

providing to their workers.

DR. RICH TEMPLIN: Just one other aspect of the costs. I read too much, I think. And

sometimes I come across obscure stuff that people didn’t notice or realize. But I don’t know if


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

folks recall during the whole health care debate and implementing Obama-care, there was a time

when reports were flooding in. There were different avenues that you could submit information.

And I came across a series of studies that had been done by epidemiologists who were jumping

up and down, that they had not been adequately consulted on the Affordable Care Act.

And what they were talking about was the billions of dollars that could be saved annually

in this country by looking at disease factors, and how disease was transmitted, and things like

that. And it occurs to me, now that we’re having this…You never know when this stuff is going

to come back up and you can use it and sound smart. And so it occurs to me that, you know,

sitting here as we think about this, that wow, they were on to something. Because think of the

costs to all of us collectively of this vector for disease transmission of people having to come to

work as Ms. Hernandez was saying, you know, in terms of you know, the way that it spreads

around. We’re wrestling with a lot of Medicaid costs here in the state of Florida. And there is

that pressure to expand Medicaid, and that pressure’s going to be there for a while. And you

know, this could be seen as a cost savings, really to taxpayers. I know that someone would have

to massage it and get into the nitty-gritty and do the math. But, I mean, that is a cost that maybe

we hadn’t thought of. And then just on a personal anecdote. There’s a restaurant in town that I

can’t get my friends to go to with me anymore because there was a time period when there was

some folks that were sick there and everybody got sick, and they don’t want to go back. Now

I’m a diehard. I still go. But I go by myself. And so that’s a cost to some of these local

businesses too. You know, people getting sick there.

CHRIS HART: Please. Ms. Lewis.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

GLORIA LEWIS: It’s a burden that everyone should share the cost, the employee, the

business, and government. As it stands, everyone is at a loss. There has to be somewhere where

you can make it work for the employees, where the employees feel the security to care enough

about the job which would help the employer. And then at the same time, if the employer is able

to help the employee, then it helps the government, because then you can do a very similar

program that the employees are now having to go to the government for, then the government

won’t have to pay. So, I mean, all around, everyone should share in the cost. But we need to

come up with something that is going to work for everybody.

CHRIS HART: So Ms. Lewis, that’s actually where I was going with my next question. And,

you’re on to it. So if we recognize that there’s a cost, there’s a “pay-it-now’, “pay-it-later”

should the burden be solely distributed to the business, or solely distributed to the employee, or

should it be more fairly distributed throughout others within the society as the whole. Because

we’ve talked about it as a public health issue, a family values issue, or an economic development

issue. So I was curious, was there any way, just off the top of your heads, and it’s probably not

fair to ask you this, so you don’t have to answer of course. Is there some percentage that you

could put on say, the employer, or the employee, or the general public (we’ll call it government),

and just sort of keep it to the three groups?

CYNTHIA HERNANDEZ: I’d just like to go back and re-read a statistic that I mentioned

earlier. In 2012, 23% of Florida’s residents can be qualified as poor, living in deep poverty, or

near poverty. And it just goes back to this issue that, it sounds like, and what the research has

shown, that people, employees who don’t have paid sick time, are already paying for this. And

not only are workers paying for this, it sounds like the public is also paying for this through our


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

tax money. And so it’s really an issue that needs to be addressed now. And, again, it’s such an

important issue that needs to be looked at and provided for, at least the bare minimum. Because

if we don’t do this, I mean, I’m sorry, I’m losing my train of thought. But going back to your

point, I think it’s the employees who don’t have paid sick time are actually already paying for

this cost, and the taxpayers as well.

GLORIA LEWIS: The employers have to share in the responsibility. Right now, the

employees are paying and the government, the taxpayers are paying. Because the majority

employees that don’t have the benefits at the hospital or Medicaid. But they’re working for the

employer. I’m not saying for all the burden on them. I’m not saying we’re already carrying the

burden. Let’s get it to where everybody shares in the burden. I mean it’s not a one-man show.

It has to be all-inclusive in order for this thing to work, which always comes back to poverty.

It’s not that some of the employees don’t want to pay. It’s that they can’t afford to pay. And it’s

not that the taxpayers don’t want to pay, it’s that they already pay too much. So somewhere in

there, there’s got to be some middle ground.

CHRIS HART: So then back to the tiered approach, because I think what I was hearing from

the panel is that you don’t think we should have a tiered approach. But I was curious, if we’re

looking at some share of the burden, and recognize that businesses are in all shapes and sizes.

They have different levels of profitability and many are not profitable at all, should they have an

equal distribution, business to business, for some share of this particular issue.

GLORIA LEWIS: I think the state should put a minimum, at least 7 days and then leave it up

to the employers, or the size of the employees that they carry, and take it from there. But I do

think that a set minimum of 7 days is a fair start. That is not so much burden on the employer,


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

because they’re going to cry. And it doesn’t go to the taxpayers when the employees don’t have

a choice but to turn to the government for assistance. I think if we start there, then you can get

some employees to feel a little bit more connected to the employer. Like, okay they do care a

little bit. You get a better level of employees because this is a business that cares. They give the

employees sick pay. You get what you pay for. If you don’t care about your employees, you’re

going to get trash employees. They’re going to come in and they’re going to treat your business

like nothing. Somewhere in there we’re in this together. You know without the business, there

is no customers. Without the customers, there are no employees. It’s a unified situation. Soon as

everybody sees that we all need one another, the sooner we can fix all of this mess. You know,

what I mean. We need to go to prevention and forget solutions. Everybody is worried about

solutions. If you fix solutions, more problems keep coming up. Let’s get to what’s causing the

problems. The heart of it is poverty.

CHRIS HART: Thank you.

DR. APPLEBAUM: What is the public interest exactly, in subsidizing low-wage workers? I

turned the news on this morning and I saw that there’s a Walmart store where the employees

have taken up a food drive for the Walmart employees at that store who don’t have enough to

eat. I mean why do we want to subsidize low-wage employers? Why don’t we? We keep their

workers alive. We provide food banks. We provide Medicaid. We provide CHIP programs.

Why do we want to subsidize low-wage employers in this way? And what are we talking about?

Who are the workers who don’t have the paid sick days? It’s certainly not anybody in this room?

There’s not one person in this room….oh, sorry….I apologize Gloria. There is one person in this

room who does not have it. And…


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

GLORIA LEWIS: And you know. Thank God, I haven’t seen a doctor in 23 years.

DR. APPLEBAUM: I’m really glad to hear that because you wouldn’t been able to go.

GLORIA LEWIS: And it’s prevention. I’m healthy. I don’t abuse anything. I don’t do drugs.

I don’t smoke. I don’t have insurance. I don’t expect the taxpayers to pay for me. It is

prevention.

DR. APPLEBAUM: Many things however, we’re not capable of preventing for ourselves.

Eighty percent of low-wage workers do not have even one paid sick day. As Gloria has said,

they’re already giving at work. You know, they’re already paying for it. The taxpayers are

paying, the workers are paying. The only group that is not paying are those employers who do

not wish to provide these paid sick days. And I will just reiterate what I said. I think that many

of these employers are sincere. The ones that I’ve interviewed are sincere. They were concerned

about it before it came. They had not had it for their part-time workers. They did not know what

was going to happen. I’ve got these 30 teenagers who work after school. What’s going to

happen if I have to give them paid sick days? The experience of Connecticut employers with

paid sick days, the experience of New Jersey and California employers with paid family leave, I

hope will serve as a road map for other employers to see that in fact, we’re talking about

something that is so minimal here, that it really is not going to create tremendous problems for

business. And we have evidence that employees view it as a form of insurance. They save it. In

Connecticut you can carry over 5 days to the next year, so you could have a maximum in

subsequent years if you don’t use it. People are willing to do that and are happy to do it. So they

view it as insurance. They do not abuse it, they do not overuse it, and I’m glad that Gloria has

been healthy. But I think all of us had the flu in our lives, or have had a child who had the flu,


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

and know that we need to be able to handle these things. I don’t think it’s a burden for

employers. And I think what we’re talking about is so minimal. If you’re talking about

something larger, we could think about how you might share it. But we’re talking about 5 paid

sick days, which are earned. So a part-time worker in the state at the proposal of 1 hour for

every 37, would be lucky to earn 3 in a year. So we’re not talking about something huge here.

We just have to keep that in mind.

CHRIS HART: Dr. Applebaum, thank you. We’re going to allow Dr. Applebaum to be the last

statement of the panel today. Dr. Weissart, Mr. McQueen, Ms. Lewis, Dr. Applebaum, Dr.

Templin, Ms. Hernandez. I’d like to thank all of you for coming up here today and spending so

much time with us. We know it’s your personal time that you’re spending here with us. I think

this has been a remarkable testimony, even better follow-up of conversation. If any of you have

anything that you would like to submit, so as you go home and you’re thinking through some of

the conversation, or you’ve thought about perhaps a question that you would have liked to have

delved a little bit more deeply on, but we just didn’t have time, and if you would like to submit

something to us, we’d love to have it. If you have information data, surveys, things that you’ve

made mention of during your testimony, we’d like to get that. I know Mr. McQueen you did

receive a specific request from one of our task force members for some of the data that you were

stating during your testimony, please send that to us as well. We will need this as we’re putting

together our findings leading to the recommendations of the task force. But on behalf of the

entire task force, thanks to each and every one of you. It’s now ten-minutes till noon. What we

need to do is take a break. Give everyone a little time off. Let’s convene back here at 12:30.

Let’s just take a 40 minute. Come back here at 12:30. At that time, for those of you that have


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

signed the public comment sheet, we will begin public comment at 12:30. What we plan to do is

provide each of you 5 minutes, the same as we’ve done for ourselves, the same as we’ve done for

our panelists to talk through your perspective on this issue. Of course, after that, we won’t limit

the time on our task force but I’ll try and just keep us within certain boundary limits. But we’ll

have time for Q and A with anyone that comes and provides public testimony to us just so we

can get the fullness of the discussion. So, with that we will stand in recess until 12: 30. See you

then.

END OF FIRST FILE

CHRIS HART: Okay, it is 12:35, and I would like to reconvene the employer sponsored benefit

study task force meeting. We are now in our public comment portion of the meeting and we have

several speakers with us today. Before the break, what I said what we would do for public

comment to five minutes per participant; we will still keep within that guideline-so for those of

you who are wishing to speak, please do limit your time to five minutes. We do have the timer

here which we will monitor, and then I said that we would kind of go into a free form with the

task force members, and as I have done in previous circumstances; if we are really kind of

getting into a topic-we can expand time-but I am going to ask that we try to limit it to 5 minutes

per participant as well. I think that will keep us focused because as we all have been able to see.,

due to the nature of the topic we have been charged to review, we can truly find ourselves far

afield from the stated focus.

And, I am going to apologize to those of you who are speaking-I have been going

through the list of names. There is a high likelihood that I may mispronounce your name, and I

am very sorry for that. So, when you come to the podium, please state your name correctly so


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

that I can hear that-we can hear that-but we also have that for the record. And I have noticed

here, and thanks to all of you –you have put your name, your e mail address, which will help us

in contacting you if we are looking for additional information; and in some cases, I have the

county that you live in and if you could also let us know when you come to the podium, who it is

that you are representing -and if it is yourself, great, just let us know that. If it is an entity, let us

know that as well.

MARTY CASSINI: Thank you. Mr. Chair, Senator Bradley, Representative Wood, and

members of the task force, my name is Marty Cassini. I am the legislative counsel for the office

of intergovernmental affairs within Broward County. I actually came up today to speak and talk

about our living wage ordinance to the task force but Dr. Templin and Mr. Hernandez, did such a

great job, I don’t want to bore you with the explanation and history; however, based upon the

fact that I had the esteemed pleasure and joy of working with Senator Bradley on his wage theft

bill, and thank you again for being so accessible at all times; hopefully next year we can keep

that going, assuming the Seminoles don’t win the national championship, but anyway, and then, I

also worked closely with Leader Precourt on the living wage bill. And, I don’t think that wage

theft is really part of this and so I am just going to stick to living wage; and I will just give you

some insight as to how we see it work from a county perspective, and the reasons for it.

Our living wage ordinance only applies to a certain number of categories of contracts that

we enter into with certain vendors-they are basically security, landscaping, clerical, food service,

machinists, paratransit providers and maintenance workers. Again, these are only contracts that

we contract with people for services with people on our own behalf; and we do pay them quote a

living wage. A living wage ranges depending upon whether the employees are offered health


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

insurance or not, so you get less of a wage if you have health insurance; you get more of a wage

if you provide your own. We are constantly studying how these numbers should be added up

especially with the ACA coming down the pike.

One of the major things that is important for us to kind of give to you is the fact that the

businesses that contract with us, really like our ordinance, particularly our living wage ordinance,

and the reason why and it was said briefly by Dr. Templin and Mr. Hernandez, is that (1) they

are allowed to-the businesses that work in these areas are actually able to attract a higher quality

of worker, so they have less –they have less problems with their labor force, and when you are

talking about government work, you usually are talking about interacting with clients, that are no

of the standard private business. So it is important to have a really strong labor force in these

areas, number one. (2) we actually find that many of the businesses that would like to contract

for services actually find it to be much more suitable for them, because of the fact that they are

much more willing to put in a bid for these types of services and, overall , we can talk about the

economics of paying people more and how it spreads to the economy, but from our perspective,

based on the feedback that we have received and Mr. Chair, I would be happy to submit letters

on behalf of the paratransit industry because it 2007, during the downturn, we were examining

getting rid of this ordinance to save the county money and many of these business owners were

just railing against it and said that they would fight it.

So, I would be happy to provide those letters to you and answer any questions that you

might have.

CHRIS: Thank you, Mr. Cassini, and, of course, any information that you would like to provide


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

to the Task force, we will gladly accept. Let’s go into the five minute Q AND A period with Mr.

Cassini, any questions from the Task force members?

DR HOLCOMB: This is not something you talked about and maybe I don’t have my facts right

on this-I am trying to remember but I think that Broward County has a paid sick leave policy and

that it differs from the Miami Dade Sick leave policy in some fairly significant ways.

MARTY: Yes.

DR HOLCOMB: One that I seem to remember is the liability for the employee, if the employee

challenges-I am sorry this is the wage theft—

MARTY: Yes, the wage theft.

DR HOLCOMB: There are some fairly significant differences between the Broward County

and the Miami Dade policy—and I wonder if you have an opinion on the merits of those

differences, and also, just on the fact that the two counties have different policies rather than

having a unified policy because one of the things we are interested in –is the question of

preemption and whether we should have a statewide policy rather than a local policies.

MARTY: Well, Mr. Chair, as you know Miami Dade ordinance was put into place before

Broward County’s was –in terms of the wage theft-and we actually sat back for a couple of years

and examined the issues with the Miami Dade and we tried to smooth out a lot of those bumps

between the employer and employee that caused any kind of hostility or negative reaction, any

kind of retaliation, etc. etc. So our model is premised solely on-well, not solely –at first, on

conciliation between the employer and employee—the employee brings the claim and we

immediately contact the employer after we have done the documentation and they have shown

that it has not been two years since the claim has arisen and we actually try to bring them


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

together to mediate and, in most cases, probably, 95 percent of the cases that we actually have

settled, have gone through the conciliation process not resulting in any types of other fees , legal

fees or costs and so that would probably be the first and foremost that we would point to.

DR HOLCOMB: Do you have an opinion on the desirability of the different ordinances in

different jurisdictions-do you think it’s desirable to have the separate ordinance-or is a uniform

ordinance best? Maybe local conditions would suggest different ordinances in different places-do

you have an opinion on that?

MARTY: Well, of course, whenever you ask a county employee what they would like, it is

always home rule, and so we like our ordinance a lot, and we like it much better, not that we

don’t like Miami Dade’s-we think it is quite suitable-however, we just don’t see many other

counties doing this, and implementing these types of programs.

ANDY MADTES: My question might be somewhere along the lines of Prof Holcomb-have you

had any blowback from the industry in having two separate policies-Dade versus Broward?

MARTY: No, and I don’t know of one business which has left because of either wage theft or

living wage ordinance-when it was starting or when they were a part of it.

CHRIS HART: Any other questions? Okay-then next we have up –Carmen Balasquick

CARMEN: I am representing myself as a mother. You know, it is very hard when you have

children and you don’t have earned sick time that you have to choose to send your child going to

school with the flu because you cannot leave work and I believe that earned sick time will

benefit all the families in Florida and also the economy of Florida.

CHRIS HART: Thank you-would you like to entertain any questions—no-that is certainly

you’re right-next up we have Paul Heroux.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

PAUL HEROUX: Thank you. Best version I ever saw was a person who saw my name in print

and called me Hero-u-x-if you are going to chicken out, that is the best version I ever have seen.

This is not a hat, this is a poor man’s toupee and I meant to take it off. To start out, my name is

Paul Heroux. I live in Orlando, Florida and I have lived there for over 30 years. I am a

homeowner for about 22 years of those age-I have lived in several other states before that. My

work experience includes I am a sole proprietorship right now and I have worked with small

businesses before –the brunt of my time was spent in the insurance industry as a claims adjustor.

So I have tasted a number of different things in a number of different places. I have also been

involved in the earned sick time situation in Orange County since its inception. There are a

number of things- I don’t think I am alone in being one of those people who what I planned to

say when I got here, is not what I am going to end up saying now. Not because that my attitude

has changed but because there has been so much good said here that I wish we had a pot of

coffee and about two hours—let me put it that way.

HB655-one of the blessings was that it recognized the fact that we have to go over and

talk about things in order to come up with the best ways to do things—I was involved because I

reached an age where I am semiretired. I still work, and so on, but I have the time to do things

that I consider important and I consider earned sick time important, specifically in Orange

County, because I consider as apparently does Ms. Gonzales, earned sick time is something that I

always had available to me, I consider it a cost of doing business and a basic employee right and

dignity. It is even more so for the people who don’t have it-and you have heard the numbers-over

80 percent of people in the service industry, not having this available to them and over 40

percent of people overall in Orange County-not having that available. It is something specific to


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

our area. Ours is very dependent on the service industry because we are a tourist area. And, it

becomes interesting on this point, where we worry about-and I have heard this concern out here-

and it is a valid concern-that people might take advantage of earned sick time, to take time off

that is not involved with sickness, for themselves or somebody else.

What we are running into in Orange County are employers who very carefully engineer

both their hours and their situations because they know they have at least three people available

for any job they have and, as a result, benefits are not there, and it is very much taking advantage

of the situation also. I got involved to try to bring that under-one of the things in the earned sick

time thing for Orange County is that we had, as was mentioned here by Ms. Applebaum, 40

hours equal to an hour-so part-time people could accumulate and earn, pay the price for the sick

time they had and this was important and would change that. I fought very hard for that-I did a

lot of canvassing, I was able to do that-I just told my boss that I needed the time and he said yes-

when you are a sole proprietorship-you can do that. So I spent a lot of time canvassing-I

received petitions from Republicans, Democrats, members of NORMAL, a number of different

organizations-everybody was willing to sign-because they agreed with me? Not necessarily-but

they expected that our method of government would work and if they had a chance to vote for it,

that was as it should be and if the local government considered it necessary to our area, that is

how it should be also. We got to September 11th 2012, we had over 52,000 signatures and we

qualified to be on the ballot.

We sat down in the afternoon about 1 o clock and by 11 o clock we were told, that it was

not going to be on the ballot and that more study had to be done –we found that this had been


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

accomplished because several members of the Board were on their tablets or phones texting

lobbyists, corporate attorneys and so on-it is known as Textgate-you can look it up.

It was a shock to many of us. It is really bad when you are a citizen of your County and

you find out that standing in front of your Council and speaking means less to them than the

voices of invisible people that are vibrating in their laps, which is basically what we came away

feeling and the courts have agreed with us and said it was against the law-we were on the ballot-

and HP655 renders it somewhat moot, but I bring it up because one of the first questions that

came up was-should the State preempt –should local governments be in charge of things? The

answer’s yes! I have lived in a number of places, but ours is, I would not use word patchwork,

ours is an area specific situation-we have a predominance of service industry people. We need

for them the protection of minimum standards, which I would say is better than, as you

mentioned, the vast majority of companies actually provide these services-the ones that are

taking advantage of not having them-lower the bar for these people who are trying to do the right

thing.

Is my time done?

CHRIS HART: 15 seconds.

MR HEROUX: Forgive me on this-the point is this-people left to their own devices want to

have their governments work for them-our government is not uniform-it never has been uniform

and as Churchill says, it’s the best there is except for all the others. Our free enterprise is not a

uniform or efficient system but somehow we seem to be the most powerful country in the world.

Let us find ways to work together and let the present situation that has worked for us for 150

years in Florida, continue to do its job. I wish I had more time. Coffee is on at my house at any


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

time-you got a couple of hours-drop by. Thank you.

CHRIS: Questions? If you are willing-if you have any questions?

JEFF CLYNE: Yes, I just have a question. And thank you for offering your –taking your time

and being interested-what is your view on the competitiveness-we have talked a lot in this room

about the service sector employees—restaurants and hospitality but if Orange County was to

pass an ordinance that would require five or seven paid sick days, for companies that compete

across the counties, say in Orange County, a contractor who might have to compete in Columbia

County that does not have such an ordinance, and it drives their costs up and therefore their

competitiveness up, what is the thoughts with that?

MR HEROUX: With regard to changes, from time in memorial, the thing that I have a hard

time finding and I am a student of history, very similar to Mr. Templin, which means my head is

basically a landfill of stuff that I have read over several years, but basically, I can find examples

where local governments have come up with ideas that have eventually been taken by the State-I

have found examples where States are bells that have caused Federal to happen, there are things

of change—but what I have never seen is a uniform situation. That is not the way America is

built. We presently have a number of different –a number of different things within our state

here, and within the country. If uniformity was important to bring industry in and keep people

going, there would not be, in the service industry a restaurant or hotel within 50 miles of the

coast from Boston to Washington because they are all different all through there; I have lived all

through the Bo-Wash megalopolis. Here in Florida, we already have a number of places with

very specific needs. The needs in Orange County, are not the same as they are in Hendry, and

vice versa. And somehow governments –companies always manage to do well. Subway exists in


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Sweden –as a matter of act it’s one of the countries that has an awful lot of sole TIME STAMP:

180 MINUTES proprietorships or small business owned and yet, they have regulations up the

wazoo. I don’t think it’s a problem. It has not been shown to be-I have not seen where

uniformity has proved itself to be a blessing either.

CHRIS: Any follow up?

MR CARPENTER: Thank you—you know, I heard a lot of testimony and I am just-in my

mind-I am having a hard time reconciling the big picture that if paid time off or sick leave, is

good for everyone, so to say, why is it discussed geographically on individual basis as opposed

to if that, in fact, is the case, why would state preemption, not be the proper way to deal with it? I

know that Orange County is unique, but at base, the question and arguments being put forth for

the betterment of society and individuals, does not seem to be geographically based, city based—

and company or industry based-if you are going to accept that as a premise, how does this then-

this patchwork division start to come into the question?

MR HEROUX: Well, once again, and I stress this-the choice of words as you know, is very

important and the difference between patchwork and area specific becomes an interesting thing-

the idea of one size fits all versus minimum standard-it changes the vision immediately. At the

state level, I don’t have a complete answer for you, but at the state level here, a minimum

standard-there are not the same requirements –in an agricultural society-telling an agricultural

family who runs their own farm that they need sick time, is kind of moot. In Orlando, we may

have stringent requirements above and beyond the normal-we should be free to go and address

those and if our constituency actually elects for it, it does not harm the next county and what I

am hearing is that businesses are not going to deal well with this? Historically, businesses have


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

always dealt well with this, and actually, he brought up child labor-one of the first arguments

against child labor was that we would destroy the nuclear family because if children could not

work, they would have to be sent away to homes because nobody could not afford them. It was

literally in newspapers and brought up as a legitimate argument. I hope that answers the

question.

CHRIS: Follow up? Thank you, sir. Very much appreciate your time here today-next we have

Jared Nordlund. Welcome.

JARED NORDLUND: I am Jared Nordlund and I am with the National Council of LaRaza-I

am a resident of Osceola County and National Council of LaRaza has two offices in Florida--one

in Orlando and one in Miami. Just a little background-the National Council of LaRaza is the

largest Hispanic Civil rights organization in the Country. We have 300 affiliates across the

country including 12 here in Florida.

Our affiliates here provide resources to the Hispanic Community like Head start, housing,

counseling, preparedness, nutrition classes and workforce training and development. Last year

we did four focus groups in Miami and Orlando and through those focus groups, we came to the

conclusion that we support earned sick time.

The focus group was about workplace issues, and earned sick time was brought up. The

workers told us in the actual focus group that if they had earned sick time policy at their

workplace, it would actually help reduce the stress that they feel n a day to day basis doing their

job; in the focus group, the people in the focus groups, and all the focus groups –they were not to

a certain industry at all—it was people who worked at airports, at restaurants, offices-you name

it-they were there. It crossed all ages and generations out there and so there was not any type of


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

skewing or anything. The one reasons why Hispanics go to work sick, we found out, because of

high unemployment in the Hispanic community, and the high competition for jobs out there:

They would rather go to work sick and keep that job to avoid losing that job and how to figure

out how to make ends meet without having a job to support their families or themselves.

We were told during this focus group of stories of workers and the retaliatory measures

that their employers would take, that if they did not show up for work, that they were fired and

let go without reason or cause-they were just let go-when they showed up for work, they were

not told they were not needed anymore-they were sent home; that went on with what Gloria’s

things were in terms of the actual workplace practices out there, and so, we are here to support

what Gloria said-that is out there-it’s reaffirmed in the Hispanic community-that goes on and I

would say the Hispanic community plays a central role in tourism and hospitality industry in this

State and so I can definitely it being true with what Gloria says is out there.

The workers we spoke with they said that having an earned sick policy would actually

make their life –in terms of their job -more productive-without having to fear the employer

repercussions out there-they felt that their workplace would be a lot easier to work in and

actually be able to do a better job out there than what it is right now.

We also-they also told us that Latinos—care deeply about the wages they earn. They

don’t want entitlements. They want to work hard and they see an earned sick time policy is a tool

that they can use to balance their career as well as their personal life out there. It has been said a

couple of times here-especially in the Hispanic community or the Hispanic family, the primary

wage earner is also the primary care provider for the children, their parents, their extended

family out there-that is the person that is going to get them to the hospital or to the doctor’s


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

office or whatever needs to happen out there; to be able to have earned sick time to be able to use

it for themselves when they get sick, or for their family out there-actually helps them to keep the

balance of work and their personal life.

That is all I have to say.

CHRIS: Thank you-are you willing to stay for some questions?

ANDY MADTES: You have an office in Orlando and Miami? Do you have an idea of what the

Hispanic population is in Orange County around now?

JARED NORDLUND: I would have to check –I think it’s probably 30 to 40 percent-it depends on –I

would say.

ANDY MADTES: Guess-ti-mate on how many Hispanic are in the hospitality industry?

JARED NORDLUND: I don’t know that-I don’t have that number on me, actually?

ANDY MADTES: Would you be able to get it?

JARED NORDLUND: I think so.

ANDY MADTES: I will follow up with you through the chair-thank you!

CHRIS HART: Other questions? Thank you! Next we have Laura Johns.

LAURA JOHNS: Thank you. I want to do something a little different—I want to represent

myself for one minute and then I have someone else to represent as well.

I personally am a single mother of three children-all school age and my middle child has

a chronic medical condition. She has progressive scoliosis which requires ongoing maintenance

and doctor visits and other things. So we are not just talking about somebody who happens to get

the flu here, me as a primary care giver, the only primary care giver, but luckily, I do have

parents who are able to help out, but it requires extensive medical visits throughout the year and


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

monitoring constantly, physical therapy-things like that-and I am lucky enough to have earned

sick time-but so many parents and so many kids are not able to adequate medical care for chronic

conditions-not something that you can just go to the emergency room for because you are sick;

you’ve got a fever-something that is ongoing that affects your health throughout your entire life,

if you don’t have that. I have to drive, due to our insurance, over an hour, to see her specialist.

So we are talking about not just a couple of hours that you need to go see a doctor; it ends up

being five or six and other testing things; this is very critical. It affects children that not only

have sudden urgent illnesses; it affects people with chronic medical conditions that need ongoing

maintenance as well. So that is another reason why this is so important.

Now, I would like to represent my employer who is organized now-we were involved in

the Orange County Earned Sick Time Campaign heavily. We did have somebody who wanted to

come here as an expert witness but was unable to attend and she is Claudia Williams, who is a

research analyst with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and again, I want to emphasize

-it was mentioned earlier, but this is really very much so a woman’s issue. It affects-they are the

primary caregivers. They are the ones who are most affected by this and so I will read the

testimony that she wanted to provide.

I will try to read quickly. I hope I don’t go too fast because there is quite a bit:

Thank you for the opportunity to address this Task force about the importance of

employee benefits such as earned sick days in the State of Florida and how it would impact

workers, families, and the general public. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research conducts

data analysis and disseminates its findings to inform policy, address the needs of women,

promote public dialogue and strengthen families, communities, and societies.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

We have been conducting research and providing technical assistance on paid sick leave

and paid family leave to policymakers and other community leaders around the country since

2000.

Earned sick time is a good policy for Florida’s employers, workers and the general

public. The employers that already provide earned sick days, would have a level playing field

with other businesses and it would be easier to preserve healthy workplaces. While this policy

generates some concerns about the ability of business to continue generating profits, attracting

the most talented workforce and creating jobs; the evidence from jurisdictions that have passed

earned sick days ordinances have all been positive.

San Francisco has provided employers to provide earned sick days since 2007. As in the

case of Florida, San Francisco employers feared that the law would impede job growth.

However, evidence from research conducted by IWPR revealed that San Francisco grew twice as

fast as neighboring counties that had no sick leave policy; even in food service and hospitality

sector which is dominated by small businesses and viewed as vulnerable to additional costs. An

impact evaluation on the ordinance conducted by the IWPR found that six out of every seven SF

employers did not report negative profitability affects from the new policy. Three and a half

years after the law took effect, a majority of hotel and food service companies, support the law.

I am going to skip a little bit because there is a bit more. It already has been stated that

workers in San Francisco as well as in Connecticut did not report any abuse of the policy.

Turnover either voluntary or involuntary is expensive for employers. Turnover entails a

variety of costs for employers; of which actual outlays to recruit a new worker are only a small

portion; low productivity of new hires, drains on the productivity of the new workers’ colleagues


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

and supervisors, added work for human resources in processing employees’ exit and entry

training and loss of productivity during vacancies are also real costs to employers;

An analysis of nearly a dozen independent studies found that turnover has cost of

businesses about one/fifth of a worker’s salary. Having earned sick days reduces voluntary job

mobility by 3 to 6 percentage points. Because workers have earned sick days, when they have

that benefit, they are less likely to look for a different job. Since changing jobs is somewhat

costly and risky for workers, even a universal sick day is likely to strengthen the attachment

between workers and their current employers.

I will skip to another section as well since I am running out of time.

Earned sick days allow workers to take time away from work for medical appointments,

rather than waiting until after their work hours, after which they might opt to utilize hospital

emergency services instead. An analysis from data from the National Health Interview Study or

NHIS, has shown that workers with earned sick days are less likely than workers without earned

sick days to utilize hospital emergency department; even after accounting for variables such as

age, income, education, and health insurance access. It is estimated that the lack of earned sick

days, contributes to 1.3 million preventable emergency department visits each year nationally.

These visits are more expensive than a visit to a primary care physician for the same condition

and thus, if these preventable ER visits were replaced, by primary care visits, healthcare costs

would be decreased over 1.1 billion per year nationally of which over five hundred million is

currently paid by public insurance programs such as Medicaid.

So opening access to paid sick days to Florida workers who do not have access will mean

stronger, healthier families and workplaces. When employees go to work they endanger their


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

own health and the health of colleagues, while jeopardizing safety and the quality of their work;

at the same time, staying home without pay and putting one’s health first, can result in not

making ends meet by the end of the month.

CLAUDIA WILLIAMS STATEMENT (IWPR)

CHRIS HART: Thank you, you said that was your friend Miss Williams?

LAURA JOHNS: Yes. I am submitting testimony in her behalf and I believe this packet was

also distributed. You have the documents and they are fully notated.

CHRIS HART: Obviously, we can’t question Ms. Williams. No questions for Ms. Johns.

Thank you for both-for all three actually! Next up we have Maria McCluskey who is coming

back to us as she was here and had the opportunity to testify at the October Meeting.

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: Thank you. I am Maria McCluskey. I live and work in Orlando, in

Orange County, Florida where last summer we earned enough signatures on a petition,

specifically over 52,000 to earn the right for over 600,000 registered voters in Orange County to

vote on a ballot initiative or whether they wanted earned sick time or not.

This is the local democratic process at its purest form. Citizens saw a local problem and

found a local solution and used democratic means necessary to try and solve it. So I just want to

give the background regarding that really quickly. So, a basic overview of the ordinance that we

were trying to pass in Orange County was one hour of earned sick time for every 37 hours

worked.

So whether you were part time or full time, you had the chance to accrue sick time.

Obviously a full time worker would earn it quicker than a part time worker. So we thought it was

a fair proportionate system and a nice compromise between workers and businesses. And so


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

really quick, I know it has been mentioned before, and I want to try to not talk a lot about what

our panelists have talked about, but nationwide, 40 percent of private sector workers, have no

access to earned sick time; in the counties like Orange and Miami Dade, some of the largest

counties in Florida, that number is actually closer to half and so our workers are worse off in

places like Orange and Miami Dade than they are in the rest of the country when it comes to

worker protections like earned sick time.

Also, according to The Orlando Sentinel, our big newspaper there, the Metro Orlando

area job market is the lowest paying in the nation and so 37% of workers, well over a third of

workers earn less than $25,000 a year and this kind of goes hand in hand with what was talked

about earlier that 80% of low wage earners, having no access to earned sick time. This is

something that affects and you got to see and speak with Gloria today and you got to put a face

to this issue that we have been talking about for weeks on end. This is something that impacts

thousands, hundreds of thousands of workers in Orange County.

So we came together to create a local solution to a local problem. That is at the heart of

this democracy and we followed the law. We met every single statutory requirement according to

our county charter to earn the right to vote in 2012 on earned sick time. That right, however, was

taken away by several members of our county commission and after an investigation by the

Florida Department of Law Enforcement they were found to have violated Florida’s Sunshine

law and they were fined for their civil infractions. They were not charged criminally.

So we think an earned sick time policy in Orange County is good for business, and is also

good for the workers. Enacting one on a statewide basis would create a floor, a minimum

standard so that workers have some modicum of dignity and respect in the workplace so that


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

families do not have to choose between going into work sick, or sending their child into school

sick, or risking their job and their TIME STAMP: 200 MINUTES family’s financial stability—

the-cost of a few days of unpaid leave is the difference between a lot of families being able to

make ends meet. Being able to keep the lights on. Being able to put food on the table.

So, we feel that in absence of the State enacting some minimum standard for working

families that local governments should not be precluded of having the ability to follow the law

and the local democratic process and enact worker protections like earned sick time.

So we also feel that the legislation that specifically preempts our earned sick time policy

in Orange County is a direct violation of our home rule charter, in addition to harming family

and public health, and also, harming job security for families as well.

I also want to kind of also quickly go over –a few kind of—opposition –a few arguments

we hear from opposition about a patchwork. Companies are used to operating in different cities,

in different counties, in different states; in different countries and this is –like we have been

talking about-operating in different localities that have different standards, is a cost of doing

business and they know that. We have different tax rates between counties. Orange County is

6%; Seminole County is 6.5%. They are doing just fine.

Education standards as well-there is our State who oversees education and then the

school board is also allotted some sort of autonomy per county to decide what’s best for their

local students. And, specifically, chairman, the pay now or pay later kind of framework that we

were talking about- I would like to have everybody think about it as less of-giving workers

earned sick time is less of something that goes on an expense sheet versus something that enters

the economic cycle when you give a worker earned sick time, or some minimum worker


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

protection like that, they now have job security and stability and this goes for their family as

well. So, they are more likely to stay employed and have higher morale on the job, higher

productivity; and this benefits everybody. If they stay in their job, they will turn around and

spend their money in these same small businesses; so, it is less of a cost that a business is putting

out versus it is kind of a return on investment for businesses when it comes to worker protections

like that.

And I also wanted to half touch on –we talked about the women’s issue, a few quick facts

about women in the workplace, specifically without earned sick time: 1 in 5 working mothers

report that they or a family member have been fired or disciplined by an employer for taking

time off to cope with an illness or care for a sick child or a family member. So as a woman, I am

not a mother, but I have one and she has always had earned sick time and the ability to take care

of me when I was sick and this is something that impacts families, especially working mothers

and so I would urge everyone on the task force to take that into consideration.

CHRIS HART: Any questions for Ms. McCluskey? I see Mr. Clyne and then Mr. Madtes.

JEFF CLYNE: Thank you. And was that age before beauty or the other way around? Could

you tell me again how many signatures did you need on a petition to get this on a ballot?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: We had over 52,000-we needed slightly less than that.

JEFF CLYNE: And briefly what was the ballot initiative?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: In Orange County, it allowed private sector workers to accrue one

hour of sick time for every 37 hours worked. It did have a kind of a – don’t know if you want to

call it a tier system—small businesses of 15 employees or under did not have to pay sick time but

specifically had a provision that made it illegal for a worker to be fired for taking unpaid leave I


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

they work for a business that has 15 or less employees.

JEFF CLYNE: So, the Orange County Commission, they are elected by the folks of Orange

County?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: Yes sir.

JEFF CLYNE: So, rather than going a ballot initiative, did anyone bring this forward to the

Orange County Commissioners and get anybody to sponsor this as an ordinance before a ballot

initiative was created?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: To get a little funky and in the weeds here, when we got enough

signatures, the matter went before the Commission and they voted on it and according to our

charter there were only two options; so the county commission had to vote on it one way or the

other-if they voted yes, it became law; and hundreds of thousands of workers in Orange County

would have earned sick time-unfortunately, it did not go like that. They could either vote no, and

then the matter goes to voters in the November 2012 election but what happened, to be honest,

they created an option C that broke the County Charter. It broke the law and a three judge panel

voted that they broke the law when they delayed a vote past the ballot printing deadline. This

was a very sophisticated, coordinated operation going on here and so they kind of played a little

bit of political football and were able to delay a vote long enough literally it was down to

minutes with the supervisor of elections ballot printing deadline; that night, it was a matter of, I

think ten minutes that they were able to delay the vote long enough.

JEFF CLYNE: But it still got on the ballot?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: We took it to court and a three judge panel ruled that the County

broke the law and ordered it onto the August 2014 ballot and so as of now, voters in Orange


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

County are planning a vote on earned sick time; however, HB655 renders their vote absolutely

meaningless and so it takes away over 600,000 registered voters.

JEFF CLYNE : But really, and I know that we are not here to debate laws necessarily, but if

the commission did not take it up, you go out and get 52,0000 signatures and get it on the ballot

and then the people vote for the law collectively rather than a commission, correct?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: Yes. The democratic solution. That is all we wanted-we had several

people who did not like the policy in particular, but believed in the process and were willing to

sign the petition because they wanted the assurance that when they wanted to put a policy

forward, that they would be treated –hopefully-they were not treated the same way that we were-

that they would actually have a shot.

JEFF CLYNE: And this is coming up when?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: August 2014.

MR MADTES: Mr. Clyne must have been reading my mind because my question was along

the same line but I just want to go back to HB655-even if the voters do go to the ballot box, and

vote, the will of their conscience, the 655 moots that vote-it is negated because of the law, is that

correct?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: It’s moot.

MR MADTES: Thank you.

CHRIS HART: Other questions?

MR CARPENTER: Thank you for being here-and the same question to you and I understand

your passion and your geographic orientation in Orange County and I understand that you are

talking about –if it was –the exemption on the State level was to stay-that you would argue for a


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

minimum standard here and then allow individual cities and counties to take something up and

above-is that your position?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: Correct and instead what we’ve got is neither-we don’t have a

statewide minimum standard and now we have forbidden any municipality or locality from being

able to enact something like that.

MR CARPENTER: I appreciate your presentation and your thoughts, and we are going to have

to bring recommendations forward-we have to listen to things and make decisions-if you had to

choose at leaving it at a localized level, as opposed to the state preemptions, but whatever

standards are set, those are the standards and there is no local action that can go above that,

which one would you choose?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: I honestly do not think that it is an either/or –I think that State and

Local government can work together and I feel like we –we do have taxes, our local taxes, state

taxes, if we can agree on taxes, we should be able to figure out this. And I am from a home rule

charter county, so I always have to err on government that is closest to the people.

GREGORY RIEHLE: I just have one quick question-was there a carryover provision in the

ordinance?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: I cannot remember off the top of my head-no, no.

GREGORY RIEHLE: So use it or lose it basically after a year.

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: Use it or lose it.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: Thank you. Two questions I have just for the record-what

group do you represent?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: Organize Now. We are part of the coalition that worked on the


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

earned sick time campaign.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: And tell me more about your organization-I don’t know

anything about Organize Now. Do you –who supports you? Are you affiliated with any other

organizations?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: No, we are a community organization. We are –we started in

Orlando-we now have an office in Broward County as well, and we advocate for lower to

moderate income families. We are nonpartisan and nonprofit.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: Where do you get your financial resources? Who pays your

salary?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: The good old nonprofit, old fashioned way-we write grants and we

submit them to our family foundations-who are actually who funded the earned sick time

campaign.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: Okay and you make reference to the high percentage of

employees in Orange County who do not have access to vacation pay, I mean, to sick pay or paid

time off-do you have a breakdown between what we would consider full time employee and part

time employees?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: As far as who has it, or does not have it-we don’t have that much of a

breakdown of it but if I can kind of just paint with broad strokes here-we have a huge tourism

service, hospitality industry and a lot of those workers, are part-time—a lot of these workers may

work part time here, but they have one or two other jobs, so the issue –a lot of times is—people

are trying to –they are making money working part-time at different places, which comes out to

well over full time, however they are getting benefits from nobody and so they are working just


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

as hard, if not harder than everybody who has a full-time job at 40 plus hours a week at one place

and they just don’t get any sort of benefits or protections from any of their employers.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: So talking about the marketplace of labor, is this a good

solution, or should there be an incentive for them to get a full-time position?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: Honestly, a lot of the job growth that has been happening throughout

the State, has been lower wage jobs-that is not going to change overnight, and so people are

working hard, and adapting to this economy that we have, and they –that’s it is not going to

change overnight-I am not sure –what exactly?

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: Let’s take your personal situation-you have a part time job or a

full-time job?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: I have a full time job.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: Do you think that is better than a part time job.

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: I do because my employer...

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: You have answered my question-thank you.

CHRIS HART: thank you-one follow up from Mr. Clyne, and then we will follow up with Ms.

McCluskey.

JEFF CLYNE: So in our democratic process, the ballot initiative, was signed by over 50,000

folks who really –and all –everything aside, they voted themselves in –really a raise or a benefit-

or they will by signing the petition-and I am making a point about the preemption-so if you were

to go to the same 50,000 people who signed that, with another ballot initiative that said they are

now going to have minimum wage of 20 dollars an hour in Orange County; now if I am making

minimum wage, the mandated minimum wage, naturally I am going to sign that petition and we


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

get it on the ballot, who wouldn’t-and that may sound absurd—but it is truly not because when

you do the math on five days or seven days sick time, in a company like mine, that is a huge

number and so who would not vote themselves a raise, and so my point is, in terms of the way

this law was written, it was written, I believe, for that reason, because you could have any

municipality and every county in Florida going their own way and if the system of county

commission government, does not go that way by an ordinance standpoint, the you can use your

ballot initiative.

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: I think that is wrong to assume that 50,000 people all signed the

petition all for the same reason; there were a lot of reasons why people signed it and we heard all

of them today-whether it was for moral reasons because they feel that families should have some

form of security and stability; whether it was because they don’t someone sneezing in their salad

when they go out to eat, or maybe because they have worked for decades and have not seen an

earned sick day. We had people sign it from all walks of life-from our tea party friends to our

super left friends and everybody in between-we had so many people come together and really

rally around the first successful ballot initiative in Orange County history-and unfortunately, a

really ugly precedent was set.

So, you know, I believe that-I have faith in my neighbors that they will vote-if they have

the chance-if they get the chance—that they will vote and do what is right-and vote for smart

policy-I don’t think a petition asking for six months of vacation time is going to get enough

signatures to get on the ballot and get enough votes to become law-I think that that sort of

slippery slope logic is a misnomer in just trying to talk about creating minimum worker

protections. It’s not a raise-it’s a protection for workers—and it is a protection for your


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

customers-it also helps the local economy when families have a little bit more disposable income

to go to your restaurant on Saturday night and take their family out to eat-to go to the movies-to

shop at the local store-it all goes back-right back into our local economy-that is how feel –it is a

cycle and a return on investment.

CHRIS HART: Thank you-oh apparently you are not done yet.

SENATOR BRADLEY: Thank you, Ms. McCluskey—for your testimony today-is it your

testimony that everyone who signed the petition supports the measure?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: No-most of the people who signed it support the actual policy.

SENATOR BRADLEY: When you talked to the people who gathered the signature—did you

talk to them about the things they were supposed to say to the individuals that they were

gathering signatures from?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: We told them to explain the actual policy –what it is-and it is our

belief, and I feel that it has been proven today-that it is something that is good for families and

good for public health and this is something that collectively a lot of people believe and so, most

of –probably 99.999 percent of our petition signers believed in the policy and the process—but, a

great example, I use is when a candidate is running, no matter what office they are running for,

whether they are a Republican, Democrat or Independent, if they are petitions to run for office,

even if I don’t personally care for their leanings, I always sign it because I believe in the process

and that is something that is really important too-we are not just talking about a moral argument

here or a labor argument here-we are also talking about process and democracy and as cheesy as

that sounds-we are talking about the local democratic process which is at the heart of what we

love so much about the way our government works.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

SENATOR BRADLEY: that is an interesting point about the process-what form of government

are we? Are we representative democracy? Are we a pure democracy? Out of curiosity, do you

think there is any issue that is only appropriate for an elected body and is not appropriate for the

ballot or do you think every single issue that an elected body considers is also appropriate to be

considered via direct democracy?

TIME STAMP 220 MINUTES

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: I feel like I am not the best one to make very complex, philosophical

arguments about that but I believe that the way our county charter was structured was to allow

the right issues to be voted on in the most democratic way possible, and obviously, with a lot of

other issues, such as budget and all of the stuff that most people don’t want to deal with

anyways, our county commission does that and that is why we elect them –we elect them to

handle that but our charter, is a home rule charter and was specifically written to allow people to

have say when it comes to certain things and it set a pretty high bar to get to that point-you can’t

just get anything on the ballot.

SENATOR BRADLEY: So you acknowledge that there are issues that are complex and there

are issues for experts to come in and discuss and debate public policy issues that are not

appropriate for direct democracy but appropriate for representative democracy to resolve. There

are such issues by their nature that are appropriate for elected representatives to resolve rather

than people by ballot? You acknowledge that?

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: Honestly, I would like to take that conversation to another place. I

feel that that is –outside of here-I feel that is not the issue that is at hand. I feel that that is a great

argument and debate to have and one that I would love to have, but I think


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

SENATOR BRADLEY: The testimony you gave today was about –a very meaningful and

emotional testimony-about this process –and we heard from the gentlemen as well that was

involved in the process, and that is fine, the story, to have that story, but you all brought it up –so

let’s talk about it and that is what I am trying to explore, because this strikes me as an issue, that

is by the very nature of the testimony that we have been taking over the last 2 days, a complex

issue; there are a lot of stakeholders here. And that is why we elect people and when you have

sound bites on a ballot about a feel good measure, without taking into an account on complex

issues, I disagree quite frankly, with some of what some folks said-that that is not the type of

measure for –that is appropriate for- I mean some issues are appropriate-that is why we have a

representative democracy.

MARIA MCCLUSKEY: I feel like this is a public health issue and personally, I feel that is

something that people should have a say in. I saw that you sponsored a bill that specifically gave

local control to counties and localities regarding where you can and can’t smoke in outdoor

areas. That is a public health issue. I think it’s great that you left it up to localities to decide.

Things like public health issue, I don’t think are complex when you boil it down and realize what

is at stake here.

SENATOR BRADLEY: I do understand and I appreciate –and my questions may sound a bit –I

am really trying to spur discussion and debate and I appreciate your perspective as well and

thank you for that.

CHRIS HART: Thanks again once again for coming and providing very sound, sophisticated

public comment and we know that you have been researching your issues and we thank you for

coming to both of our meetings. Next up we have Brooke Hines.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

BROOKE HINES: Thank you. So, I was here at the last meeting with Maria and I represent

Community Business Association which is affiliated nationally with the Main Street Alliance-

Main Street Alliance is headquarter in Seattle Washington and Seattle is one of the cities who

has had a paid sick leave ordinance on the books for a year and so one of the things I am going to

do in my time up here is give you a sense of what some of the business owners who have had

this ordinance for a year, how they have been able to review their experience with it.

But I want to come back to it because I want to address what we just heard between

Maria and Senator Bradley, about what is appropriate on a ballot issue, and I think somebody

over here also said that the ballot issue was basically people coming together and voting

themselves a raise. There is a lot of ways that people can access government and the ballot

initiative is one of those constitutional ways that normal people can access government and

effect some change. You have to get a lot of people together to agree on something that is

sensible, that is worked out, and that has a lot of support to get it on a ballot initiative, and do the

work and make it happen. So, generally, these ballot initiatives, the ones that work, are going to

be sensible ballot initiatives. That you can get 52,000 people to sign onto and that can make it to

a ballot and then win the ballot; now, people who have more resources, don’t have to go to a

ballot initiative. People who have more resources have lobbyists, people with more resources

have direct access to government; so the ballot initiative is very important because it gives

people who don’t have the direct access that other people have, to affect government.

And so when you say that this ballot initiative was essentially granting people a raise, is it

not, when you send lobbyists to Washington to lobby for tax loopholes, are you not granting

yourselves a raise? It is the same thing. Right?


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

So, as a matter of scale, we are just talking about people trying to get a few days off from

work to take care of their kids, and to not spread contagion throughout restaurants and so on and

so forth. I just wanted to kind of correct that because I feel that there is an unevenness there and I

also get a sense that there is some pushback on the idea of ballot initiative in general, and I think

that the ballot initiatives are very important for normal people to be able to access government.

Real quickly, businesses in Seattle, couple of restaurants that are part of the Main Street

Alliance have been doing the paid sick days for about a year now. One of the businesses, Plum

Bistro, after doing this for a year, have seen a 25% increase in revenue; they have hired seven

new full time employees; they started a food truck; they’ve opened a new location; expanded a

location-all without losing an employee, and this little snippet right here is very important

because you can’t do that kind of expansion-you can’t add food trucks, you can’t expand , you

can’t do all of this kind of work if you are losing employees because they are losing their job

because of sick time. So this particular business owner makes a great point.

This is one of my favorite ones-this is a pizza shop owner in Seattle and he is responding

to the criticism that –well if we did this paid sick days that the pizza would all of sudden get very

expensive because we would have to be paying for people to be off work to be sick and he says –

this is somebody who has 100 employees across 3 or 5 different pizzerias—the costs of his sick

days per month are between $40 and $80 dollars across 80 employees-he says this is not even

enough money for me to even put a line item on my budget-this is not enough money for me to

consider tracking on its own –it is something we absorb and we are something that we are glad

that we are doing.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

I will just e mail these over-I got testimony from businesses in Orange County who

support the measure, but I think it was more important to get a sense of what business owners are

feeling who have actually done this for a while, to get a sense, of yeah, there is this perception

when you start out that this is going to kill my business, but after you do it for a while, the reality

is very different from the perception; the reality is that it is easily absorbed and it is something

that becomes an asset for the community and for the business itself.

CHRIS HART: Any questions for Miss Hines? I do want to limit the questions to five minutes

for the reasons the task force has been convened versus the ballot initiative and how and why

Orange County did what it did-that is not in our charter. It is important to many people but that is

not why we have been convened to discuss. Any questions related to our task force topic?

MR. CARPENTER: If there was some type of minimum standard set up, do you have an

opinion or –not to relate it directly to Orange County-but are there any maximum caps that could

be earned in a year?

MS HINES: The maximum cap in Orange County was a total of six days. 56 hours-which works

to be about six days—and it works out as a tiered program because it is earned? Your workers

are only getting as many hours as they are putting in to a ceiling of 56 hours for the year and it

does not carry over and it does not become, like in a corporate job you might get paid out for

your sick days or vacation days left over-this would just go away-it is just an option.

CHRIS HART: Other questions? Miss Hines, thanks for joining us. Next we have -

MR CLYNE : just one comment to your comment-and your guidance-we spent many hours

discussing paid sick leave and healthcare in here which really isn’t on our charter and our

mission in this group, and in addition, I think that ballot initiatives have everything to do with


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

what we are talking about here-so I just want to offer my opinion on that because this overlay-

this is becoming more and more popular both statewide and countywide in government, and that

is the importance of what we are discussing here. So thank you.

CHRIS HART: Mr. Clyne, I appreciate your opinion on that-my comment had to do with the

time we are spending on those offering public comments—and so, if we were to get into all the

intricacies of the ballot initiatives and home rule versus those counties without home rule and

how they operate-my concern was that we were just going to spend too much time on each of

those issues. But I do think it is extraordinarily important-yes, Mr. Kimbrough?

MR KIMBROUGH: Since Jeff raised the question, I will probe one question –I had pulled back

for a second-but it is a very specific and narrow question and I am going to direct it to Senator

Bradley and Rep Wood—or any other legislative expert here, regarding the Orange County

ballot initiative, as it was relayed to us-they got the petition, they got a chance to get it on the

ballot and some messy stuff happened with the local county commission and it did not get on the

ballot in a timely manner to be voted on last summer, which is what I understood would have

happened-therefore it was pushed until August 2014 and in the meantime the legislature jumped

in and said time out-let’s stop. Question is-had it not gotten messy and gone to the ballot and

been voted on and approved or not-let’s assume it was approved and the legislature still had the

issue of wait a minute –this is not a direction we want to go and put in the preemption law that

they did, would it have overwritten that already existing ballot or would it have left it completely

grandfathered?

SENATOR BRADLEY: From a purely legal standpoint, it would –the legislature has the ability

and the power to preempt, even as you suggested that it would have naturally gone on the ballot


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

and been voted on favorably the legislature would have had the power to preempt-whether the

law looked –whether if that would have happened we would have gone into session and the law

would have ended up looking as it did, I can’t answer that question since it did not happen that

way. I will tell you –and I am sure I cannot speak for Rep Wood and I am sure he is going to

want to speak for himself—I will speak for Senator Bradley—what happened in Orange County,

I heard about it-I did not know the details until I sat through this testimony. TIME STAMP: 235

MINUTES I had heard about textgate because I look at papers around the State of Florida

through some services that I get but I never really got into the details of what was going on one

way or the other on the matter, I was looking at it from more of fifty thousand foot academic

level and I agree with Mr. Clyne’s point and I appreciate you trying to keep this thing tight and

everything, but this was obviously, I now get a sense of the emotion of the issue and that the

community wants some answers and this is a part of that process and I think it is worthwhile to

engage in that discussion. I think it is also worthwhile to discuss some of the issues, frankly I had

had mentioned—and you had some great answers as well because it is not an easy discussion-it

is not black and white—should we be doing this-is this the way to make public policy? Is this the

proper role for the local government? State government? For ballot initiative? How does one

come up with these types of policies and let’s face it-that is one of the things that sat in motion-

that is why we are sitting here today is what happened in Orange County. Did I answer your

question?

MR KIMBROUGH: Yes, what it tells me is that the legislative intent regardless of the outcome

of that election, getting –their attempts to get it on there-brought it in motion, and the legislature


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

then acted and said, we want to maintain the authority at the State level on this kind of an issue

regardless of their vote or not.

SENATOR BRADLEY: I can speak for Senator Bradley and any senator I spoke to on this matter was

my vote had nothing to do with what happened on the ground in Orange County. It was the policy.

CHRIS HART: If I could just real quick- Mr. Kimbrough, I think what we could do through Kim is ask

the legislative committees that would oversee an issue such as this; so, in other words, how would the

timing of a ballot initiative, a constitutional initiative, and a home rule charter county, how would that be

impacted by state law, and I think we could get them, not necessarily to give us a direct opinion, but at

least like they do in bill analysis, tell us how that would be viewed. I think this would be instructive to us

since this would come on the ballot August 2014 and just be instructive. Representative Wood?

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have been involved in this issue and basically

its answer is found in our Florida constitution. These county governments, or municipal governments, are

subdivisions of our State government and specifically, the constitution says they have powers that do not

go against general law and by filing a preemption, we take that power from them. So the ultimate

authority under our Constitution, for all county government, rests basically with the legislature—there are

a few things laid out on in the Constitution that we give counties the right to do. Charter government is

one of those things, but at the end of the day, the legislature retains the power in a general way under the

Constitution.

CHRIS HART: Thank you, Sir. It is a great discussion. Mr. Kimbrough?

MR KIMBROUGH: I just think that that clarifies for me that whatever happened on the

ground, once the issue was raised, whether it ever went to the ballot or not is the sense that this is

a State issue and not a local issue and that is what I was trying to get regardless of whatever the

emotional push/pull and the outcome of the actual vote would have been, I think we would

probably be at the same place at the table right now-that is what I was trying to get to.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

MR MADTES: Please correct me on this-how many counties have home rule charters? Is it 20?

CHRIS HART: I don’t recall.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: I don’t think it is that many.

MR MADTES: As we are talking about preemption, which to me is the big issue here, and I

know we had an expert testimony on this during the first session, and their opinion was that the

Florida legislature can preempt, even over counties that have home rule charter? That was their

opinion.

CHRIS HART: That is true.

MR MADTES: That is true. Okay.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: It is in our Constitution.

CHRIS HART: It is as Rep. Wood described.

REPRESENTATIVE WOOD: If you pull the constitution, we have one right here-and I can

show you the provision.

CHRIS HART: We will follow up with the committee and kind of get them to give us

something that looks something like bill analysis—it is pretty clear-the United States

Constitution trumps the Florida Constitution and the Florida Constitution trumps home rule and

they laid that out for us at the last meeting –and that is how it works and I don’t think it has

changed in many years. Next up we have Caroline Johnson.

CAROLINE JOHNSON: Thank you for allowing me to present. My name is Caroline Johnson

and I am the Director of Business, Economic Development, and Innovation Policy at the Florida

Chamber of Commerce. We have over 139,000 members representing 3 million jobs across the

State. The Florida Chamber supported preemption of mandatory leave to the State level during


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

the past legislative session to avoid a patchwork of burdensome regulations on Florida’s

businesses. We also believe that this is an issue best left up to the employer and the employee

when negotiating terms of employment. Now that this issue is before the task force, I would like

to present information on why a minimum standard for Florida would be harmful to Florida’s

business climate and competitiveness –and issue that we have discussed –or you all have

discussed at length today.

From November 7th to November 15th, the Florida Chamber conducted an on line survey

of our business members. The purpose of this survey was to collect information on the general

attitudes of business owners and management towards government-mandated paid sick leave.

Like the study that the Employment Policy Institute conducted in Connecticut, while enacting

their statewide standard, the chamber also asked what cutbacks each business would look at as

the minimum standard was put into place.

What we found that of more than 90 percent of respondents indicated that they did not

support a statewide standard. Businesses old us that benefit packages allowed them to be more

competitive in terms of attracting quality employees and government interference would prevent

them or would prevent them from competing to attract the best and the brightest. Businesses also

told us that they are concerned about their ability to increase pay for existing employees and their

ability to hire additional employees. Businesses surveyed had a very real economic reaction to

this mandate and what we have learned is that the consequences of government-mandated leave,

could be detrimental to existing employees and future jobs.

Based on our survey, 42 percent of businesses said they would consider cutting employee

wages. 57 percent said they would consider cutting other benefits such as annual leave,


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

retirement benefits or health insurance. Half. Half of our businesses or half of our respondents

said they would consider laying off employees. 45 percent said they would increase consumer

prices and finally, 26 percent said they would limit expansion in Florida.

This could be a major setback towards recovering from the recession. In fact, nearly three

quarters of businesses that responded said they would be unable to absorb increased costs with a

minimum mandatory leave standard. The economic impact could be very real on Florida’s

families: reduced pay, less available work and higher prices due to increased costs for Florida’s

job creators or businesses.

Ultimately, the Florida legislature made the right decision to preempt mandatory leave

benefits to the State level. A local government passing these requirements would have created a

patchwork of burdensome and costly regulations on business; however, this does not mean that a

statewide minimum standard would be less of a burden on Florida’s businesses.

This could have very real long term impact on Florida’s competitiveness, and

attractiveness on businesses looking to relocate, expand, or grow in our State. I asked the Task

force to consider the economic implications of a minimum standard, and recommend that the

State not set a minimum standard for employer-sponsored benefits.

CHRIS HART: Thank you, Ms. Johnson?

MR. MADTES: You have any statistics about the economic implications that occur to the

business community in the State of Florida when the Florida minimum wage rose?

MS JOHNSON: I do not but I can look for that information and get that to you.

CHRIS HART: When you put forward your survey, of those respondents, do we know how

many of those respondents currently on their own offer paid time off?


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

MS JOHNSON: We did ask that question and I have that information broken down by both full

time and part-time employees. Definitely paid time off is more prevalent among the businesses

that responded; about sixty percent offered paid sick leave compared to 18 percent to part-time

employees.

CHRIS HART: Any of that information that you can get to us, we would greatly appreciate. DO

you –with the respondents-do you have any sense with your cross tabs-how many of them are in

Broward County or Miami Dade, where they have their own ordinances? Did they give you any

feedback of their experiences in those counties, if so?

MS JOHNSON: We wanted to make the survey very anonymous to make businesses feel

comfortable, especially with how things have played out in Orange County. We did not ask their

location. We do have business size. I do have an array of comments on how businesses

responded to a minimum standard. Most of our businesses that responded willingly offer some

sort of paid time off or work with their employees to ensure that they receive the time off that

they want. We talked about respect for employees a lot today and our businesses responded that

they do have a lot of respect for their employees and try to work with them to either swap shifts

or give them the time off they need; however, for those companies that did not offer any paid

time off, it was because that did not work with their business model-whether or not those

employees receive commission or are contracted, it just varied on the type of businesses.

CHRIS HART: How many small businesses did you have in your survey, and then how do you

define for your survey purposes, small business, because as you know, small business gets

defined even in statute at many different levels.

CAROLINE JOHNSON: 41 percent of our respondents were businesses 1 through 15 and we


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

made that distinction because that was the cut off point for the Orange County mandate-and so

that was 41 percent of respondents; and then we did 16 to 50; 51 to 100; 101 to 250 and 250 or

more and so if you wanted to look at about –I would say half –half of businesses that responded

were under 50 employees.

CHRIS HART: Did you ask them about the potential for tiering? You just mentioned you broke

them down on the size the way you did-because of the potential for tiering? Did you ask them the

tiering question?

CAROLINE JOHNSON: No.

CHRIS HART: Just curious. Any other questions-thank you-the last individual we have for

public comment is Tim Nungesser—welcome, Sir.

TIM NUNGESSER: I am the legislative director for the National Federation of Independent

Business here in Florida. Just a little bit of background on NFIB. We represent about 10,600

businesses-small and independent businesses here in Florida. The range of our membership: we

have sole proprietors all the way up to companies with a few hundred and a few thousand

employees. The only companies that we politely turn away for membership are publically traded

companies. Unique among associations, we actually only take positions on issues that our

members have told us that are very important to us and so that is through a regular State

balloting.

The mission of this task force is a very important one. The issue of the mandatory paid

sick leave has very real effects on the business community. As kind of has been mentioned

today, none of this is free-it costs our business owners, and the folks then have to pass on the

costs to either the customer or they can go and cut labor costs. NIFB feels very strongly that the


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

legislature acted correctly in preempting this issue to the State level. We also feel very strongly

that we opposed a minimum standard at the state level. We feel it has the effect of dis-

incentivizing businesses to expand and creates a new burden on those folks.

With that being said, I want to keep this short. We believe the legislature did the right

thing and I am happy to answer any questions.

CHRIS HART: Any questions?

MR MADTES: Would you repeat what organization it is that you work for?

MR NUNGESSER: National Federation of Independent Business.

MR MADTES: And it is the businesses that support your business?

MR NUNGESSER: That is correct-we have about 10,600 members in the State of Florida-about

350,000 nationwide.

MR MADTES: Do they pay dues or a fee to your organization?

MR NUNGESSER: That is correct-all of our TIME STAMP: 250 MINUTES operations are

funded through our member dues.

CHRIS HART: I have a couple of questions for you-earlier we were characterizes the issue in

several ways; Public health, family values, economic development, women’s issue-and I was

curious because whenever I look at a problem, there is always the worldview, either I bring to it,

and another individual that I am talking over the issue with brings to the question on the table

and so-hearing public health, and economic development, and women’s issues—and I am

curious and maybe this is coming out of left field, but I am curious how NFIB would

characterize this issue?

MR NUNGESSER: Absolutely characterize it as an economic issue for the business owner.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

You know, as a business owner grows their business, they start up their business put in blood,

sweat, and tears to build their company and then government comes in and creates a new burden-

new mandates on these businesses and now they have to come in and pay out more benefits and

it costs more money on the business; They are unable to expand and it really affects the small

businesses.

CHRIS HART: So as a follow up to that, the same question I was asking the panelists earlier,

when Mr. McQueen mentioned pay now or pay later—and I think you were here during that

back and forth-I was just curious to know –do you have a position on the comment that you can

either pay now or pay later and if so, put it in the context of the member companies that you

represent, and how do you think they would view that?

MR NUNGESSER: Well, you can kind of look at our membership and we actually do have

members that offer paid time off. They view it as an incentive-they can get more folks applying

for their jobs-kind of select –sort of a better workforce for their companies-we do have members

that offer it. But going back to pay now or pay later, I would really have to go back-again we

ballot everything so everything comes directly from our members and going back to that

balloting process, each member has one vote and so we hear it directly from those folks. I would

like to take it back to our membership to be quite honest. Mr. Chairman.

CHRIS HART: Thank you. I really would not want you to go to the expense of asking that

question-I was just curious as to what your thoughts were. I guess, then, as a follow up, we got

into the question with the panelists-over who should pay and what should the share be-do you

have any thoughts about who should pay, and again I know you would have to go back to your

members. Well, you called it an economic issue, so I will take it from that standpoint rather than


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

the other direction I was coming at, so if it is from an economic standpoint, who should pay

should there be a shared cost?

MR NUNGESSER: Our organization actually opposes a minimum standard across the board.

So we leave it up to our individual members to decide whether they are going to offer paid time

off-that is, sort of, our position.

CHRIS HART: So that raises another question –do you know how many of your members, the

same thing I asked Ms. Johnson of her survey results, do you know how many of your members

on a percentage basis, do offer paid time off and maybe what the minimum is or the

minimum/maximum,. The range? Or, perhaps, an average?

MR NUNGESSER: That unfortunately, I don’t have that information-I am happy to check with

our DC office. We do a lot of research on these issues. The majority of it is at the national level

and so I don’t know if I can get anything broken down to the State level, but I am happy to check

to see what we have.

CHRIS HART: If you could check, I would be interested in seeing those results and another

question I would have would be of your membership, how many of them have businesses in

more than one county location. Obviously, recognizing that you represent smaller businesses

through the National Federation of Independent Business.

MR NUNGESSER: I don’t have exact numbers on that as well-I can tell you that we have heard

from a number of our business owners that do operate in multiple jurisdictions and that this

would be kind of a nightmare for those folks from an HR standpoint. On that, I would have to get

some data for you as well.

CHRIS HART: Do you, and this is the same question I asked Ms. Johnson as well-do you have


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

any information that you can provide to us about the impacts in Broward County and Miami

Dade County to some of your member businesses as a result of their ordinances?

MR NUNGESSER: Again, we are happy to reach out to our members down in those counties

and find out the local impact there and get back to you.

CHRIS HART: that would be very helpful-we obviously have heard a lot of anecdotal

testimony and what I would like is as many facts and figures that can be brought forward to this

task force as possible –that would be helpful to us as we are putting together our findings and

then our recommendations. Any other questions?

MR CLYNE: Careful how you answer this-you a Gator or a Seminole?

MR NUNGESSER: I am a Knight.

MR CLYNE: I know you said there were 10,000 businesses –how many employees does that

represent?

MR NUNGESSER: I would have to get back to you –but I can tell you at the national level,

sixty percent of our businesses represent five employees or less-I don’t have the figures on the

Florida.

CHRIS HART: Any follow up-thank you!

Well, members that brings us to the magic moment here about talking a little bit about findings

and recommendations. As you all know, from our previous meeting and the information that Ms.

Yablonski has put forward, we will be having a webinar conference call-on December 17th-is that

correct? That is correct. December 17th-so you know from a process standpoint, what we plan to

do, and it is Ms. Yablonski’s job to put this together for us, is put together, as best you can a

draft report by December 17th-containing findings and recommendations. From that draft report,


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

we will convene and it will be publically noticed and available to individuals who wish to listen

in and we will convene to discuss that draft report. Depending on how that particular meeting

goes, if we reach general consensus or if we have fifty percent plus one in agreement with the

draft report, that is the report that would be taken forward to the governor, to the speaker and to

the president.

However, if we get on the call, and we realize we are far from consensus or at least

anywhere near a fifty percent plus one, we will continue to work on that draft until we have a

work product that we can turn in. However, we will need to be complete and have a report

submitted by January 15 and so you can see that given that there is some holiday time period in

between Dec 17 and Jan 15 we realistically don’t have that many days available to us. So what I

would like to do during this period of our task force meeting, is open this up for general

conversation for the task force to talk to one another—for task force only-I know it can be a little

strange in such an open atmosphere to talk about findings and recommendations that are either

something you are thinking that you may want to support or you don’t at all want to support-but

this might be a good opportunity that you have heard of any findings that grabbed your attention

that you should look more deeply into as Mrs. Yablonski is writing this report or if there are

some recommendations based on that series of questions that you think we should consider-so I

will just throw that out there and be silent and wait to hear the comments.

REPRESENTATIEV WOOD: Thank you, Mr. Chair and since you have been picking on me

first, I might as well kick it off and you know, I want to thank all the presenters at both of the

meetings, and all of the task force members for participating in this discussion. I think that we

have gotten a really informative background and description of this issue and for me, I am going


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

to say that I see validity in all of the comments that have been made for a variety of issues, but,

as policymakers, we need to come up with what is the best policy. In making that policy that is

not to say, that all of the concerns that were expressed do not have validity, but there are ways

that people approach problems and issues in life, and that is what policymakers do. And, I am

just going to –you know-put on my citizen’s hat—I have been very blessed to have been born in

this state, and involved in a family business that has been very successful-a family business that

we have employees that have worked for us for many, many years and they become part of your

family and I think the issue that we have here is a society that has a lot of different moving parts

and how do we best deal with all of those moving parts; I am a big believer in the free market

being the best way to deal with those issues and I think that it is a cultural approach. I think it has

proven very –proven to be very beneficial in this current economic environment that we find

ourselves-not only in the U.S. being competitive with other states, but being competitive in a

world economy, and so for me, I am just going to kind of lay out what our company does without

mandates.

You know, and it is all voluntary and to me, that is what we need to maintain-is that

voluntary spirit-not to say that minimum standards might not be appropriate to make people do

things, and do that-but I just don’t think that is what Florida needs to really need to engage in at

this time. I don’t think the abuse or the unfairness or whatever side wants to characterize or any

side that wants to advocate for minimum standards, I just don’t think we are there yet as a

society. Obviously, some of these more progressive cultural environments like San Francisco and

DC and Connecticut and Seattle—all these other places, are adopting these things-but that is not


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

who we are in Florida. At least, maybe we are and I am just in the minority and don’t realize it

but I am just telling you were I am coming from.

TIME STAMP: 275 MINUTES And so, you know, my company if you are a full-time

employee, we give you, we have a two week paycheck, you know, situation-80 hour-if you are

an hourly employee, salaried employee, you don’t look at their hourly, but if you are an hourly

employee, you get 80 hours and the overtime and everything and after one year , we give each of

our employees, 3.69 hours of paid time off, whether that is vacation or sick-that is your time-you

earn it-you leave the company you take-we cash you out of that you take it with you. But at the

same time, I have other businesses in my organization, where I employ a lot of part-time

employees one that is really economically challenged is a golf course that I own and I employ a

tremendous amount of part-time people in that golf course-a lot of senior people that work there

because they want to play golf.

But I have to pay them –in accordance with the law-I have to pay them minimum wage

and we talked about-Andy, I know you raised the point-did the minimum wage bring business to

a halt when we raised it a little more than the federal minimum wage? No. But it’s an imposition

–it is just adding on –to more and more and more-and that is really want we are talking about

here. It is not that if we passed a minimum standard that it is going to sink the boat or do

anything else, but where do you stop? And isn’t a better system to allow the marketplace to have

those things-your organization-Dr. Templin, I don’t know if he is still in the audience, but your

organization is based on the market of labor –if there is a situation where labor is not represented

properly, you all come in and save the day. And organize them and do all those things –that free

association-that great concept that our country is founded on. I am adamantly against adding


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

another mandate to the forest but if you are a part-time employee, to me it is a job-but it is not

the kind of job you should be satisfied with-you should be going for that better job—you should

be going for that job that has benefits. I realize that is not available in these service industries

and a lot of different things and we had a lot of people up here and there is maybe some

unfairness in some of those situations, but there is also opportunities throughout our society.

We had Gloria in here talking about poverty. Yes, there is a lot of poverty in Florida and

there will remain to be poverty in Florida when you have people who do not have the education

and the where with all to advance and we got in this State, we have job shortages—of I mean we

have shortages of labor that are skilled in STEM and all these different areas that we are trying to

address in the legislature and focus and try to get more people into those types of things-so just

passing another regulation is not going to make life all a sudden better for everybody.

Take the health issue-I mean –where are you going to draw the line on the health issue?

You got a cold you are not allowed to go to work-that would wipe out the legislature-you walk

around that place and everybody is sanitizing their hands-if you are in any public place you have

exposure to health issues. I guess what I am saying from the perspective of what works for

Florida, where we need to be-I think the legislature took the right position-I supported that

legislation-I understand what things are doing. I am all about focusing on these issues-of

promoting that we should—improve our economy-the advantages of providing full time

employees these types of things, but as a government mandate, I cannot buy into that and I

probably have taken more of my time than allowed and I appreciate your indulgence, Mr. Chair.

So my recommendation will be that we go forward with, I guess, should State

governments preempt local governments from setting minimum standards-yes-and no we should


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

not set minimum standards and I hope I have told you why. I could not write that down but I am

sure Kim can turn that into two or three sentences.

CHRIS HART: Thank you. I appreciate you getting us started here-

SENATOR BRADLEY: I concur with the representative’s conclusions. I also say the answer to

the first question should be yes and the answer to the second question should be no. Yes, the

State should preempt; no the state should not set standard minimum mandatory employer-

sponsored benefits and I will take a brief moment to explain my rationale.

I did support HB665 in the last legislative session as we discussed earlier. I will tell you

that I did not do the deep dive on it that we have experienced over the last two meetings and I

heard a lot of compelling testimony today and before and I heard a lot of compelling testimony

today as to why, as a small business owner, and I am a small business owner myself, I do offer

paid sick leave to my employees and now I am quite certain that is the right thing to do based on

the testimony I heard today from experts who have explained to us why that is a good policy to

adopt.

But that is really not the question before us today in my mind. The question is not

whether it is a good idea for employers and employees to have paid sick leave; the question is

whether that the government should mandate that all employers have that policy. To me that is a

separate question and that goes to sort of a fundamental issue of what the role of government is

in these matters.

One of the reasons why I think preemption is particularly appropriate in this issue, in

particular, is a lot of the history we heard-Mr. Clyne and Mr. Kimbrough mentioned it today-now

I heard the details of what went on in Orange County, but the idea of what is going on is the idea


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

of it being potentially being about this question-not just in Orange County and in other places

and the appropriateness of that because to me, it is obvious a real possibility if the State does not

preempt. Is this an appropriate issue for the ballot in a County? I suggest not. Why? Because it is

a complex issue. You sat through two days of testimony where we heard very learned experts

with PhDs, tell us very different views on the matter and we heard from individuals who are

affected, both in a real way, by the decisions being made, not just from an academic perspective.

And so it is obviously a complex issue and furthermore, to add another layer of

complexity, we are talking about employee sponsored benefits and that is only one part of a

package. You have wages and salary in addition to employer-sponsored benefits, and so when

you peel off one part of a larger picture, and put it on the ballot, how accurate and fair is that as

to representation of what is the minimum standard for an employee in a given area when you are

taking only one part of their whole package and then asking the government to say yes this has to

happen, in this one small area of a larger package of benefits that one receives?

So, I think at the end of the day the preemption decision was correct by the legislature

and I feel more comfortable with that after hearing this testimony. With all that being said, and I

mean this sincerely, to my friends in Orange County, the last young lady who testified who used

the language-Normal People-I can’t remember her name and I apologize-and she hit on

something that is troubling to me as a public servant-you know I went to public school. I have

kids. Teenagers-my first job was making $27,000 a year and I worked my way up and I think I

am as normal as it gets-and when I vote on stuff, I talk to everybody including lobbyists and so,

when I see a perception of our representative democracy of almost like a proletariat like in

China, separated from the normal people that-and they can’t access that system without going


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

through things like ballot initiatives, I hear that and that troubles me and I am sorry-we need to

do a better job of making sure that folks understand-I have been in the Senate a year-of making

people understand that we listen-we are trying to do our best and trying to make the right call for

people and I think that was a meaningful comment to me and I think that is a challenge to all our

elected officials on all levels to do a better job and perhaps they did not do the job they should

have done in Orange County in conveying that and that is unfortunate. But I hear you –but hear

me-if you would be so kind and that I truly, in my heart believe this is the right thing to do for

the people of the State of Florida.

MR. GREGORY RIEHLE: And I also want to thank everyone for coming and spending time

on this difficult, and sometimes, contentious issue. I suppose by comments might reveal a little

cynicism on my part. First of all, I think I am struggling a little more with the preemption issue

than other people on the panel here. It seems to me that how people come down to the

preemption issue is somehow dictated by how they come out on the ultimate issue-of whether or

not the benefits should be mandated and paid for. But, I can come from the point of view from a

home rule orientation and more about independent, rural counties-and I think about those

employers in those rural counties and how they have to deal sometimes with being having

everything dictated to them from on high.

I must tell you another cynicism-that I don’t accept the business community’s arguments

about the administrative burden of this. I think we have heard that over and over again and I still

struggle with that because it does not seem that it is that difficult for an HR department or the

payroll department to administer the benefits that are mandated or even if they are voluntary in

any particular county, to the extent that it is chains or large organizations that have to struggle


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

with doing things in different counties, I probably would have less sympathy for them-they are

big companies, big boys-they can figure out how to do this. I just don’t feel that one holds a lot

of water.

So I have struggled with this whole idea of preemption and whether it is appropriate or

not and ultimately, I think I am coming down in favor of it although I have not fully made up my

mind about it-doing my own research on this –I found out that there are in the U.S. 450 statutes,

laws, and ordinances that cover when an employee can take time off or not and we are just

talking about Florida right now. I am aware that there is a bit of a movement foot to come out

with a model-a State law model. There does not seem to be any real impetus right now for

Federal legislation in the area, but there will probably be some model State laws that are going to

be coming out addressing what we are talking about today and it will be up to the legislature in

those cases mostly to decide it.

So, and I also struggled—back like I was saying-the rural counties, the mom and pop

organizations in some of our rural counties, are very different from Miami and Orlando –places

like that and are largely rural and have different costs of living and I hear that argument very

firmly and that also makes me feel a little bit in favor of not having preemption. But when it

comes down to the ultimate questions of whether it should be mandated-paid time off, in

particular, or paid sick leave, I should say. How do you come down on that? My organization-

you shared your organization’s point of view. Ours -we have about 700 employees at our place-

and we are independent-well, we used to be a rural county-Pascal-but it is no longer anymore—it

is fast becoming an urbanized county.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

But in our company, we offer someone who has been working 15 years, they get 4 weeks

paid vacation; they get eight times day off, and so they are getting better than 5 weeks off a year

that is paid; and of course, we are flexible, we are a family-owned and operated business and we

are pretty flexible. We will make exceptions with our employees if that’s what they need –that

go beyond what the law says. I do worry though, that if we do have a state mandated minimum,

that some of the companies will go to that minimum and not go beyond that. I don’t think that is

true when it comes to minimum wage, but it could be true in this instance.

I feel strongly in favor of paid sick leave, maybe not for some of the things that are part

of the overall of what we are charged to look at here. I feel strongly about it. I just don’t –I feel

that ultimately market forces should probably determine that--I feel that most employers, not just

most, but not just most, the vast, vast majority of employers will do that if they can. I struggle

with some of the statistics and one of my colleagues over here asked-I think it was Mr. McQueen

about I think it was Mr. McQueen talking about the 88% of restaurant or hospitality workers that

did not have paid sick leave in Orange County-I think that must be including some very, very

part-time people. It just does not stand to reason for me and so I would be interested in hearing

more about that. That is how I mostly come down on the subject. I think talking too, about some

of the issues with Senator Bradley and who should make these decisions, I frankly worry more

about I hate to see a state referendum on this topic-I would rather see a local one or rather see the

State legislature decide it. TIME STAMP: 290 MINUTES I guess this is another cynicism on

my part but I don’t think that all people when they go to vote they know everything they should

know about some highly complicated laws-and sometimes it seems to me that we have some

referendums that seem a little wacky to me. I think of the size of pig pens or I think of class size


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

amendment-that was one –who is going to vote against having smaller classes, but on the other

hand, that costs a lot of money and are the people making the decision on that-voting on that-our

populace-are they well enough informed about the ramifications of that and I think we have seen

that there may be some negative ramifications of that over the last several years and so, I

ultimately, I am coming down maybe for some different reasons than some of my colleagues

here, in favor of preemption at this point, and I would hate to see mandated employee benefits

but would like to see, if it is going to happen, I think that it happen at the State level.

CHRIS HART: Additional thoughts that any of the task force members would like to share?

ANDY MADTES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I want to thank the chairman and the rest of

the panel-it has been very good experience—and it’s good to hear both sides of the argument. I

mean, obviously, we have varying opinions about this particular topic and I think at the end of

the day, there is an old saying that no good deed goes unpunished-and, the people in Orange

County and the organization’s I believe, intentions, were the right intentions. You know, these

last two meetings that we have had, most of the folks who have chosen in favor of preemption,

the business community, most of their employers provide some type of PTO for their employees.

That is, I believe a given. I missed the statistic in Orange County but I know, for example,

Disney, a union facility, I know for their full-time employees, they provide PTO time. However,

I believe that the intent was to take care of those folks who did not get any sick days, and I don’t

think, in my opinion, that it is wrong for government to mandate certain criteria for people who

can’t take care of themselves.

And we might have a different philosophical disagreement on that, but I believe in that

because I think that when certain mandates do over time, create a good quality of life for our


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

citizens, for our community, and strengthen our businesses. You heard me say from the

beginning that businesses are important because it is what makes the world go round but workers

make the world go round with it.

Now the one thing that I am a little confused about and I want to get this out there-It

appears that the state of Florida already has a constitutional right to preempt local governments

on certain issues and when this was articulated to me earlier, I took a little pause and I asked

myself why are we here if the state already has the right to do this. And I really hope that when

we are moving forward and we are working this through, and I don’t mean any respect and I am

going to try to articulate this very carefully, that we are providing some type of political cover

for those who did not go beyond the sick days in HR655. That’s my hope. Now, with that said, I

believe that local governments should be able to make these decisions. I could tell you right now

in Miami Dade County, they passed a living wage law. It only applies to contractors who do

business with them in the County and I think that the local government should have the right to

mandate that the contractors that they hire, if they want to have a mandate on a living wage or

whatever the case may be, that they should be allowed to do so because it is their community. I

believe that the people in local government know what is best for their community; they hear it

from their people and they should be allowed to make those decisions.

I know that when they tried to pass the sick day law in Miami Dade County, it did not

pass first reading. Now, I had hoped it would. I lobbied certain commissioners on it, but it just

did not happen that way. And, when I look at the list of defined benefits, it concerns me because

these are benefits that directly impact workers and then the question becomes, okay, and as we

are moving forward to the 17th, I am going to get more information on this because this could


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

have a boomerang effect in some way and it may be preemption against certain things that

businesses would prefer not be preempted. There are two sides on every story on this and we

need to be careful of that. But, I firmly believe that the local governments should have the right

to make the decisions. That is what they are elected to do. You hear it all the time-the State does

not want the federal government getting involved in the State’s business and it goes on down the

line and I just feel that –you know-by preempting local governments from being able to make the

decisions that they feel are important to their community and their quality of life, becomes a

slippery slope and the fact of the matter is, you know, each of our counties is unique in their own

way.

I heard this whole patchwork of laws and to me, that is just word smithing and I mean, no

matter what you do here-you are always going to have different laws throughout this State and it

is just the way it works because each of the counties is unique for whatever reason. The fact of

the matter is that they should be able to have the right to do what they think is in the best needs

of their community.

So I do not support the State preempting, but since I have been made aware that they

already have the right to do so and my hope would be when we are writing our report back that it

is done the way-like I said-it is not giving political cover who did not expand beyond the sick

days and I hope that at some point in time, that the sick day law gets turnaround. I mean, HR655

is not a law. The fact of the matter is that there is this issue, well, should the State set a minimum

mandatory-and old wise man once told me that politics is all about addition and I can tell you

right now, based on the politics in Tallahassee that that law is not going to be overturned any

time soon and my only hope is that we take pause as we are moving forward.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

I understand –when does it end from the representative-when does it stop-well, the

question for us is –at least from my side of the street- is when do we stop-how much more are we

going to expand on this-there are a lot of things here as far as the benefits are concerned-

accidental death, dismemberment benefits—there is a lot that goes with that and I don’t think

you are going to see laws passed to expand on that. That is just my opinion because there are

policies that have to be written up and all work that has to be done, and I don’t believe that

really, that would be a major concern—but, I am not for the State preempting on living wages,

and so on and so forth-once again, thank you-it was great to be here and I hope there will be a

space created so can we have a balanced report that goes back to the governor and the legislature

so that they can take an objective look.

DR HOLCOMB: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am unique among this group in that I am an

academic and I have been an academic my whole life. After college, I went to graduate school

and then after graduate school, I got a job as a college professor and so basically, I have been a

ward of the State my whole life and I am in awe of the rest of the people on the panel here. I

don’t have that much real world experience: business people, people with experience with labor

and the people how have testified.

With my background, I tend to come to issues like this, not surprisingly from an

academic standpoint and so, if I go back to basic principles, I think the first role of government

is to protect the rights of individuals, to protect our individual freedoms; and so, when I look at

these issues, I look at them as a matter of freedom of contract and that employers and employees

should have the right to bargain for their wage contracts and all of the components in it; that the

State should not be involved with saying-you can contract for this, but you can’t contract for that


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

and you have to include this in your contract. To me, it is a matter of freedom of contract and so,

there would have to be some very compelling reasons why we would want to override that

freedom of contract.

Now maybe we have heard those reasons as we have heard testimony, but nevertheless

by the way I start looking at the issue, it is a matter of the government protects the rights of

individuals and one of those rights is freedom of contract, and the issue that we are looking at

here is labor contract-and the freedom of employees and employers to set the terms of their

employment without the government interference. Now like Mr. Madtes, I am very much in

favor of federalism and local government control. I think that the closer you get to the people,

the better you are going to have government. So that raises the question of preemption and the

way I look at the preemption question is it’s the role of the State government to protect

individual rights and to keep local governments from violating those rights.

So in fact, if it is an issue of labor market freedom and freedom of contract, then it is

within the bounds of the State government to protect those rights by preempting local

governments from violating the freedom of contract. So, just based on principles, that is the way

I see the issue and so, to me, the presumption comes down in favor of preemption-not

preemption in general that the State should preempt everything local government does, but,

rather in this particular case, we are talking about preemption to prevent local governments from

interfering with freedom of contract and as I say, looking at the preemption issue, if we were

looking to go against preemption and allow local governments to do that, the question would be-

what would be the compelling arguments that would say that the State should interfere within

individual contracts. Maybe we heard those and we heard testimony on that, but I think if you


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

just look at the principles of government and the protection of individual rights, that it is the role

of the state to prevent local governments from interfering with freedom of contract.

CHRIS HART: Thank you, Dr. Holcomb. I think I took your class-that sounded very familiar-I

was having flashbacks from about 25 years—I just have attended that class.

MR CLYNE: You are a tough act to follow, although following you is better than following our

two elected officials. I probably have written 25 or so notes that I wanted to cover here and they

are helter skelter and so I won’t get to a few of them.

I will say this-a little background on me and my –I am one of ten kids. Five boys and five

girls and if you looked in the Webster Dictionary—under poor-back in the day-it would say the

Clyne Family. Managed to work through that and have owned a few businesses, have been a

senior executive in one publically traded company and I will tell you that in today’s world, the

scrutiny that is on companies that are publically traded is huge and the boards, most companies

are so diverse that caring about employees, the health and well-being of employees and the

health and well-being of their customers is absolutely first and foremost as you would expect. I

would also say as a businessman, one of the things we have been struggling with now and for

five years, is we just don’t know what the future brings. You get up on a daily basis and you

have no idea how to invest, what to invest, how many employees you’ll need because the game

is continuously changing. We have no security in the manner; it’s –and this relates directly to

that-if you look at it at a subdivision level around the State, and certainly, in our case, it would be

more of a county by county, industrial related. There was a time when owning a business you

could expect and read the future and we seem to have lost that.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

I am in favor of the preemptive rule and I will tell you that one of the biggest drivers in

my thoughts and why I wanted to talk so much about this ballot initiatives; you know, 5, 7 within

the last 10 years, there was a constitutional amendment and some of you might remember it:

TIME STAMP: 305 MINUTES (135) and this is not exact, but it basically said-by

constitutional law, it made it illegal for a hog to have a pig standing up. Do you guys remember

that-what that was about? I think you just mentioned it and I will never forget when I was talking

to a group bout that and talking about it at home, my wife said, oh I signed that petition outside

of Publix’s Supermarket outside in ____ that is how, well, I remember this and I said, why in the

world would you have signed that-and she said because the lady had the cutest little pig that she

was holding in her arms and she wanted to protect that pig and that is how these ballot initiatives

get going.

When I see the progression of something like this based around mandating employers to

do something in Orange County, my fear is that has the possibility with Organize America and

these other groups to spread into other counties and that’s a big concern of mine and it is a

concern because, you know, I run a sizeable business, but I tell you, the margins that we deal

with in our business, and in any business, and the public business that I was in, it was the same

way; the margins are close-they are tight ladies and gentlemen and I will tell you that we have

been talking a lot about service industry jobs here, hospitality, but there is more to it than that—

just the phosphate industry in the State of Florida, Port Authority did a study-62,000 jobs-heavy

industrial jobs in the five county region-are directly related to the industry in the five county

area-average payroll for these workers is $66,000 a year versus a $34,000 a year median pay in

this State.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

I mean this is a big stuff and when you get into counties and municipalities that want to

mess around and go changing this, I will give you a real life example. If Polk County, and they

haven’t admittedly, but if one of these initiatives reached Polk County, and you heap on, to my

business, another million dollars worth of cost for paid sick time, and by the way, we pay the

highest wages you can find in the State-and two, the manpower shortage, we have a huge

shortage of the trades. We could hire 20 or 30 certified welders today if you could find the right

welders.

But you heap that cost on and we go to one of our major clients in Columbia County,

which is right here in North Florida, one of the northern most counties, and we bid major

projects, and I am not competitive and the margins are skinny-it is easy for me not to be

competitive and I say, yes, we pay all of our employees five sick days a year—you know what

they are going to say-you are a good company-sorry you lost the business. It does nothing. If I

needed to pay sick days to hire more qualified people, I would, and I challenge and would say

that the businesses in the hospitality industry, I would guess that those that do pay paid sick

leave, probably are the better companies because they are going to get the better employees

because it is a competitive marketplace.

I would say also a bit that I would say no in terms of should the State do an overlay for

all of those reasons and the biggest one is “get out of our business,” we do, in fact, and those of

you who run businesses know this that we don’t need something else. We don’t need –we don’t

need some other regulation to follow-we don’t need to be told how to run our business and do I

think that child labor laws were necessary-absolutely. I tell you the testimony we heard today,

the human side of that is absolutely –it could be heartbreaking in some instances, and I will go


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back –to what I said earlier-the issue that we have here is that there are too many people chasing

too few jobs, and when that happens this is what you get and in order to lift people out of that,

in order to create competition, what we do is we need to create-and we are not going to do it on

this committee, but we need to create higher paying, manufacturing and other types of jobs in

this State. Thank you.

CHRIS HART: Any additional thoughts?

MR CARPENTER: I appreciate the opportunity to be part of this task force and I was a bit

conflicted on the issue just like MR. Riehle coming up here with regard to the exemption issue

and actually, after sitting up here, and we don’t have possibly good statistics, but I am shocked in

this day and age that businesses would not provide some level of sick time off for employees. It

is distressing to be sitting here and at least hear some information that there is evidently a lot of

them out there that do not. My perception as a small business person is that that was not the case,

and if that is indeed the case, in the State of Florida, I hope we receive as a task force much more

supportive information and statistical information on that and so –it’s disconcerting to hear that

and as a small business person of 23 employees that basically don’t have to provide benefits, my

entire time of running the company have always provided paid sick leave. We provide health

insurance for the employee that is largely paid for by the company. We have a 401k retirement

plan, of which we make a substantial contribution of matching, if they do. None of those things I

have to-they are not mandated by government for me to do that. I do that because, first from a

moral standpoint, I believe that I need to do that for the benefit of my family-and I call them

family-my employees are like an extended family to me. So, and this is a difficult issue that I see

when we get into these areas because we heard a lot of things that this issue broaches over into


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

morality, moral areas and it is very difficult for the government to come in a regulatory

mandated environment and we have seen in many instances when the government tries to

regulate or mandate morality. And, whether you are on the left or the right, we have always seen

abuses of that in both areas and we can historically account for that.

On a selfish side, as a small business person, I want the competitive edge that I bring into

the marketplace by providing better benefits for my employees and so that maybe an employer

who does not do that, suffers the consequences, and again, on a selfish size, I would almost think

that any employer that does not, is a bad business person and that business should go out of

business and if it does not go out of business on its own, I would hope that what our task force

has brought to light in such organization by Andy that there is mechanisms to target those

businesses that do not provide those services to their employees and maybe if it is not done in a

governmental environment , maybe there needs to be more light shed on those businesses, that

are not providing that and maybe there needs to be some organizing in certain service sector that

if that need is there, then that need needs to take place.

I don’t just see it as government’s role to step into areas that should be left up to an

employer and employee and I think there is many examples and I think some of what Greg

alluded to is a concern of mine and I think Andy has said this too. I do think State exemption is

the right way to go, but if you bring in some kind of State minimum, what I have seen many

examples of that is that type of regulation by State, or anybody seems to dumb down levels of

what you are trying to achieve positively. And it actually has unintended consequences of

creating things that are worse than maybe you had in the before situation.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Such as, I am in a service industry of appraisers and we had a savings and loan crisis and

they thought the solution was we were going to license these appraisers and you establish these

minimum criteria for appraisers and everything will be great then and we won’t have this. Now

we have had the second great recession and my observation is the generalization of appraisers

out there is certainly the quality of the appraisal work being done in this environment now is

actually worse even though there was regulation brought in to provide minimum licensing for

appraisers and so there is the unintended consequences that are troublesome to me and finally, I

am proud of the fact, as an independent business person that I work in a State that is a right to

work state-that we have the ability to contract as employers with our employees and the better

businesses should do that in such a manner that it benefits their employees because if it benefits

their employees, it will benefit the business as a whole.

And again those businesses that are not doing it, those are bad businesses and should go

out of business and maybe if they don’t do it on their own, organizations like Andy, perhaps

might bring that to light a little bit better. Again, there is a moral undertone part of me that has a

lot of internal conflict like this and I am trying to segregate that –the moral and individual side of

me into the larger picture of government, its proper role with businesses and larger State health

as a whole-so I appreciate the opportunity.

MR KIMBROUGH: Or, I could be a Southern gentleman and defer to the lady first and then punctuate

afterwards-see at least I asked-that is a Southern gentleman coming out in me. First of all, I want to say to

this committee what an honor it is to serve on this committee-it is not done yet-we have another one to go

but to see the depth and breadth of knowledge, expertise, commitment and of seriousness about this issue

to explore it with a wide open mind even though we may have come into it with certain preferences or

thoughts, one way or the other. It has been a very educational process.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Secondly, to the panelists last time and this time again the level of expertise, the level of desire

and passion and commitment to bring forth a complex issue which on its surface appeared very simple;

but as it got peeled back, we found this is a much bigger, broader and wider issue to deal with. And one of

those, I just want to touch on a couple –and then I will kind of telegraph my direction on it like the others.

Senator Bradley, you were talking earlier about the issue of are we a representative government

or are we a pure democracy and I am reminded of a story that occurred in Mariana-in one of the larger

rural counties and I am surrounded by a number of other smaller rural counties, which I won’t name. You

can pick your one. This story was about one of the counties within –within arch’s reach-a short drive from

Jackson County. Anyway, there was a well-educated individual who lived in that county, had retired and

moved back and they were expressing to me their frustration with their county commission. I won’t use

the colorful language they added to it in particular, but he was describing five county commissioners,

three of whom had dropped out of high school and one of those three had dropped out of elementary

school and the two others—his opinion of their intellectual capacity was right about with them and he was

groaning on and on about these inept local elected officials and I finally caught a breathing point and said,

let me ask you a question-have you considered-do we have a representative form of government here and

he said, yes, and have you consider that the members of that elected body may actually represent the

citizens of that community in terms of their experience and depth and it sort of stopped us both right

there. We had a good chuckle, but TIME STAMP: 320 minutes (150) I think it is important to

recognize that whether our communities are large or small and we do have a big urban/rural

divide when it comes to the counties we have in this area and the municipalities within those

counties. We have a significant divide in the capacities and the resources in each of those

governing bodies to handle complex issues and we see this divide playing out further and I will

use Colorado as an example, between the rural and the urban where the policies of the urban

dominated legislature have gotten so far afield from the culture of the rural segments of that


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

community that they even vote to secede, even though it will not really happen, it is a symbolic

vote. We hear that dialogue in our own state in many respects –the urban markets dominate the

smaller rural areas in terms of the regulations, the rule of thought, and how things should happen

and so I don’t k now if there is an answer to that, but I do know as a business person, if I am

going to deal in multiple locations around this State, trying to navigate all of those different

nuances and things that are there, if the pure democracy was turned lose, and every city, every

little town could create a different wrinkle in terms of employment law affecting how I run the

business. Now zoning-their town, their dirt, their turf-go for it, baby-that is what it is all about-

but I do believe the legislature got it right in this case recognizing that on this issue—that this is

not the right issue to be dealt with on a local home rule basis that this has a higher order to it and

it is much more complex problem than even the urban versus rural or big company v. small

company-it came about I think as much because of a public health issue-it was addressed that

sick pay was a solution to a public health issue in a county. I think that is a very serious issue and

I think the fact that we have a huge economic divide between the service workers-the service

worker economy-the part-time service worker economy—and the full-time manufacturing or

professional market that is an economic problem for the State. I challenge our legislatures to

keep addressing ways to deal with it.

But for all of those reasons, I think we served the purpose of identifying an array of

problems to address, but allowing local communities to have the control over employment law

on sick pay is not the right way to do it and therefore, I strongly support that the State does

preempt local in this area and I further support the –or say no-there should not be any minimum

standards –that is a free market issue in our State and a competitiveness issue.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

CHRIS HART: Thank you, Mr. Kimbrough and thanks to you, Mr. Riehle, for bringing forward

the rural county aspect of this conversation. I think that is always important to remember here in

a State such as ours-we have what 30 rural counties-that’s a little bit less than half but it is very

significant.

MARIA GONZALEZ: Well, I would like to start by saying that I can attest that Robert Adlee is

a real person-he has a very beautiful normal family and we thank you for all the work you do-I

would like to comment on all the business owners who do the right thing, because in reality there

is a number of business owners that do the right thing-they treat their workers right and they

comply with all the rules. They look after them –after their wellbeing, by providing sometimes

the time they need, when there is health issues and family issues, but the reality is that in our

State, that is not the general rule anymore. That is a minority. There is an entire industry that has

not been mentioned today which I have a lot to do with it-construction-in the construction

industry there are thousands of employees-they don’t have any benefits. You don’t go to work;

you don’t get paid.

And if you can think that construction work is not hard work, think twice and it does not

matter how you work or how many years you are with a company, unless you are in

management, you won’t get any benefits. That is the standard rule. Right now, there is a huge

shortage of skilled workers in construction to the point that we have found that the private sector

is paying higher wages than the wages on the union contracts because they can find the workers

they need because a lot those workers when the economy took the tank here, they went to other

States looking for work. Still, we don’t have a lot of protections.


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

In other sectors, we found that one of the reactions to the bad economy, was eliminate

full time positions, wage reductions, all those that have the contractors and the employers to deal

with the economic reality that we had, cut some costs and continued doing business. Profits are

coming back, most aspects in our economy, including construction, which was the first one to

take the dip, are coming back. We have large constructions going up everywhere in every

metropolitan area in the State of Florida; Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Jacksonville-

but still we have not seen an accommodation to let’s say what was before-or an accommodation

to the new reality. A lot of times it is just the main concern of the cost of doing business.

And the cost of doing business in my personal opinion, it is something that is a risk like

any insurance company that the employers take. You pay licensing, insurance for your

equipment, for your vehicles; you pay insurance for your office equipment. The workforce that

we have also needs to be looked at. I do have an issue with the preemption of the State of

Florida. I am inclined to think and I have not decided on any of these issues, but I am inclined to

think that I am against the preemption only because I think it’s hard for me to accept that our

State is telling the ___divisions you cannot look at this or look at that and be selective about it

and then we don’t take the responsibility to do what we need to do to solve the issue that the

municipality is trying to solve.

If any county or any city is trying to resolve labor issues or improve labor conditions for

their area because they can do it-they can see it-they have the need or they just have enough from

the community to work on it-I have a –You know-a difficult time trying to reconcile that and

understand why our State is going to interfere and say no. You cannot do that-I will take your

ability to do that but the problems in that community persist-the problem with sick time, wages,


NOVEMBER 19, 2013

with the wage theft-all those problems continue and again, I do have –it is a very –if we are

going to say preemption is the right thing to do, then we have to take the responsibility and say,

yes, we don’t want to take the risk of the situation that happened in Orlando to happen

everywhere –because yes, we still are imperfect, but at the same time, we have to admit there is

an issue and we need to work on it. And that is going to be a __ that there has to be a minimum

standard that we need to look at.

Another fact-it is giving me a hard time to reconcile all this is the fact that nobody can

tell us really –what is the percentage of the State that already provides this kind of benefit. We

might be spending a lot of time here talking a lot of experts, but we don’t really know what the

percentage is because I know a lot of people who do have some coverage, others don’t. The

minority of people I know are in a tier system—depending on how long you work for the

company, how much time you have been working there-whether you are part-time, whether you

are not. It is difficult for me only because we all see the world through our experience and what

we live and my experience is representing workers that have to struggle with these things. I see it

from the girl who sells me my car insurance, from the bank teller, from the person that hands my

dry cleaning-it is not only restaurants-it is not only hospitality-it is not only construction which is

where I work-it is everywhere you go and the lower the wages, the worse it gets-the less

protections and the less benefits they have-and unfortunately, that is a majority percentage of our

workforce. We have made a point in recent years that having more low pay jobs. We have not

been able to keep up generating jobs that take care of those things by themselves and so at this

point I am really undecided and I think if I were to go for the preemption, I would also have to

go to take the responsibility to create the minimum standards. I think it is only what will balance


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that for me-so other than that, thank you everybody.

CHRIS HART: Thanks to the members-for sharing your thoughts to date on this issue. Thanks to

all of you who have participated as panelists or during the public testimony portion.

END OF SECOND FILE

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