Inspired by decisions in cities like Tacoma, Wash., and Elizabeth, N.J., to require companies to offer paid sick leave, Lauren Kuby, a City Council member in Tempe, Ariz., began pushing a year ago for her city to do the same. By September, Kuby had secured enough support from her colleagues to have the city formally explore the issue. “I really took seriously Obama’s call to take local action,” says Kuby. “I saw cities as the place to make a difference.”
Then Kuby and her colleagues heard that Arizona’s Republican-controlled state legislature was considering punishing cities that tried to set their own codes for worker benefits. Arizona’s House passed a bill on March 1 specifying that cities aren’t allowed to require private employers to provide paid sick leave or vacation. The state Senate has passed companion legislation that would cut state funds, used to pay for services like police and firefighting, for cities that try to supersede state laws. “They actually decided to dissolve our study group because they were so chilled by the state threat,” says Kuby.
Lawmakers in Phoenix, Arizona’s capital, say they were inspired to act after the state’s Republican Governor, Doug Ducey, called in his January State of the State address for cities “to put the brakes on ill-advised plans to create a patchwork of different wage and employment laws.” He vowed to do everything in his power to block them, “up to and including changing the distribution of state-shared revenue.” (Arizona municipalities are prohibited from collecting income taxes and rely on distributions from state coffers.) Cont.
Story from - Bloomberg
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