By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Two Princeton officials said Tuesday that they expect action in the coming months on an ordinance to require local businesses to provide their employees with paid sick time, an issue that advocates lobbied council on again this week.
Councilwoman Jo S. Butler and Councilman Bernard P. Miller said they thought a vote would take place before summer, a time of the year when officials abide by an unwritten rule not to take up a controversial issue given how people are away on vacation.
“I hope we get it done,” said Ms. Butler by phone while expecting the council to deal with the issue “sooner rather than later.”
Mr. Miller spoke of his hope for council to adopt an ordinance “in a couple of months.”
Officials intend to create a working group of three council members, at a council meeting next week, whose job would be to craft an ordinance for the full council to consider. They have said such a measure — having Princeton join 10 other towns around the state with such a mandate — is a priority for 2016.
The New Jersey Working Families Alliance, a pro-labor group, has prodded council to ensure that employees get earned paid sick time. The measure would have implications for private sector employers, with representatives of the business community having met privately last year with council members on the issue.
Ms. Butler said she would expect the council’s working group to meet with merchants so that whatever ordinance is created addresses their concerns. For instance, she said they do not want to be in a position of having to give an employee just one hour off, since it would disrupt shifts of other employees and require them to find someone to fill that one hour of time.
“What we’re trying to understand is who’s employing people and in what capacity,” she said.
She raised another question about Princeton University, which employs large numbers of students on work-study programs. She stopped short of saying the town would exempt the university from the requirement.
Ms. Butler said the town is home to nonprofits, like the YMCA and YWCA, that run summer programs whose employees would fall under the provisions of any ordinance. She worries about unintended consequences.
“If we have nonprofits running summer programs to serve the under-served and we add a layer of cost that raised the cost of the services, we could negatively impact the very people we’re trying to help,” she said.
The town has decided to provide paid sick leave to all municipal employees who did not already get it. But it added some caveats to say the benefit kicks in when employees have worked 120 days, a move that exempts summer youth workers.
At Monday’s council meeting, advocates again showed up to urge action for employees in the community.
