By Matt Fair

Law360 (March 19, 2020, 6:51 PM EDT) -- Pittsburgh officials are facing a surprise baptism by fire for the city's hard-fought new paid sick leave ordinance as the mandate took effect Sunday amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the prospect of local workers facing significant time away from their jobs as a result.

Majestic Lane, who heads the Office of Equity under Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, told Law360 on Tuesday that the ongoing coronavirus outbreak would give the city an opportunity to ensure that the ordinance, in combination with potential economic relief from the state and federal governments, was providing the most good to the most number of people.

"The world was very different last week, and the world was very different a month ago as we were getting ramped up," he said. "But we're prepared to look at all the information and the situation on the ground and to work with our partners to do all we can to ensure that people have the appropriate relief."

The ordinance that came online Sunday after a contentious legal battle provides workers with up to 40 hours of paid sick time, with workers earning one hour of time off for every 35 hours worked.

The accrual of paid sick time only began Sunday, meaning that many workers would not have amassed much, if any, leave before many small businesses began trimming hours as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. But the law also allows employers to provide personnel with their entire bank of paid time off upfront.

Even as the city has promised to issue no fines during the first year the ordinance is in effect, Lane said his office would work diligently, given the outbreak, to ensure that workers are able to take advantage of any time they have earned under the ordinance.

"If people have accrued time and are not getting it, that's something we would take a more stringent look at during this time of crisis," he said.

In the meantime, he said the situation would give the city a chance to quickly assess potential regulatory changes and enforcement protocols to ensure that workers were receiving the full benefit of the law.

"We're constantly looking at how to update the ordinance or to pivot depending on the ongoing impacts on public health," Lane said. "Clearly, given the state of things now, there are going to be some changes. But given that we're just getting ramped up we don't know what changes we would make at this point."

Pittsburgh's sick leave requirements, which were first adopted by the City Council in August 2015, took effect following a legal fight that ended last summer when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the ordinance was not preempted by a state law limiting the ability of local governments to impose mandates on businesses.

In upholding the ordinance, the justices agreed that the law acted more as a health and safety measure than as an improper mandate on business.

Lane said the current outbreak underscored the court's conclusion.

"This shows the importance of thinking about public health and why our administration and others fought so strongly for it," he said. "We know that in these sorts of situations, when people are sick or when people in their family are sick, people have to have the ability to stay home so they don't impact others negatively."

The potential for a quick ramp-up of Pittsburgh's sick leave law comes in contrast to the experience on the other side of the state where Philadelphia — the only other city in the commonwealth where paid sick time is mandated — has spent five years building up its enforcement protocols since its ordinance first went into effect.


Until last year, officials in Philadelphia said there was only one person in the city's Office of Benefits and Wage Compliance who was tasked with fielding and investigating complaints filed under the sick leave law.

At the same time, there was only limited outreach by the office to inform either employees or employers about their respective rights and obligations under the law.

"There really wasn't a lot of what you would typically think of as enforcement of the law," said Amanda Shimko, who became the city's chief benefits and wage compliance officer at the end of 2018.

In the last year, however, Shimko said that the city had brought on three new staffers to investigate complaints filed under the sick leave ordinance, plus an outreach specialist tasked with educating businesses about their obligations.

In Pittsburgh, Lane said that the city was in the process of hiring a point person whose sole responsibility would be enforcement of the ordinance, and that another three staffers will be assigned to work directly under him or her.

The bump in resources devoted to enforcement has clearly made a difference in Philadelphia.

While there was an average of only about 10 complaints under the ordinance per year between 2015 and 2018, there were 31 filed with the office in 2019.

Last year also represented the first time the city recovered wages — a total of just over $1,400 on behalf of three workers — from employers who faced complaints.

"We're finally in a position now where we have the capacity to do the outreach and education that's necessary so employers know what their responsibilities are and workers know what they're entitled to," Shimko said. "We've slowly been working up to that and, now that we're there, I'm excited to see what the next year or so brings."

The extra staffing is coming in handy as the city faces what officials said has been a significant uptick in inquiries as the COVID-19 outbreak has spread.

"The office is dedicating staff to work on paid sick leave with a goal to get back to people as quickly as possible to make sure the right information goes back into neighborhoods," said Candace Chewning, an outreach director for the city's Office of Benefits and Wage Compliance. "In many cases, both employers and workers are hearing about paid sick leave for the first time, or never thought it pertained to them."

David Laurent, the co-chair of Pittsburgh-based Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC's labor group, said that employers have been struggling since the start of the outbreak to determine to what extent they'll be able to continue compensating workers who have been idled in recent weeks.

Sick leave, he said, could be an important part of that equation.

"What I know is that a lot of employers are trying to determine if there's a way to continue to pay people, and whether they do it through sick leave or just by the goodness of their hearts," he said. "There are so many questions that people have, but sick leave is a part of the response that you have to consider."

Unlike Pittsburgh, where few employees would have accrued significant time off because the ordinance took effect only recently, he said that Philadelphia could expect major growth in the number of workers filing complaints in the coming months for paid leave related to the virus.

"Now more so than ever, we have people experiencing situations that may call for paid sick leave, and given the dramatic ramp-up in payment obligations, it's probably not that far fetched to think there isn't going to be 100% compliance," Laurent said. "If there's going to be a high tide in people who are eligible to receive sick pay, you'd think there would be a corresponding increase in people claiming they didn't get what they were entitled to get."

--Editing by Jill Coffey and Kelly Duncan.

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