The New York Daily News is reporting that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has decided no to support a bill to mandate that all businesses provide between five and nine days sick leave per employee. The Speaker is citing the weak economy as her reason for stopping the bill that by some estimates would have cost City Businesses nearly 800 million dollars a year. From the Daily Politics by Celeste Katz: Quinn has  been under heavy pressure from many sides to get going on the bill. Just yesterday, a robocall from the Rev. Al Sharpton went out to African-American households, urging them to lobby Quinn on the issue. And members of the city’s Congressional delegation signed on to a letter saying the legislation is needed so workers “don’t need to choose between their health or their sick child’s wellbeing and their economic livelihood.”

Both Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg have said they have issues with the bill and the burden it would place on city businesses. Advocates on both sides of the issue have put out warring analyses of the bill’s impact, as you can see here and here.

Quinn has opted to shelve the much-debated bill, which would have mandated that nearly 200,000 private employers in the city provide paid sick leave to their workers, “because the economy is too weak,” said one councilmember who had been among the 35 sponsors pushing for the measure, which is zealously being sought by some unions and the Working Families Party.

The measure would have required employers to provide up to nine paid sick days for employers with 20 or more workers and five days for those with 19 or fewer workers.

As late as Wednesday, Quinn had said that she was still mulling the fate of the bill, which was originally introduced before last year’s city elections. Backers had agreed in May to scale down the number of sick days that employers would have to provide, but the behind-the-scenes haggling continued.

Surveys indicate that some 1.3 million private sector workers in the city don’t get paid sick leave, especially in service-related occupations, such restaurant jobs. The cost to employers of having to provide paid sick leave have ranged from $413 per worker to as much as $1,560 a year, depending on which side is doing the estimating.

The debate over the bill has been politically perplexing for Quinn, who has all-but-announced that she will run for mayor in 2013. The Democratic side of the race is likely to be a crowded one, and candidates will vie for the backing of the unions and the WFP.

“She can kiss her mayoral campaign good-by,” said one councilmember who asked not to be identified. “Her liberal wing is gone.”

“It’s unfortunate and sad that the Speaker of the City Council, a longtime progressive on so many issues, has decided to cave into pressure from business lobbyists and corporate leaders, and ignore all the evidence and data showing that paid sick leave is a cost-effective policy that helps working people, businesses, the economy, and public health,” said Dan Morris of the Drum Major Institute. “This fight is far from over. Thousands of people across the city are well-organized and fired up and will continue speaking out in favor of a bill that deserves to be passed.”

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(YWN News Desk – NYC)