Workers at TurboHaul in Annapolis Junction can move up to management jobs, earn weekly bonuses and qualify for rewards of $1,000 and more on milestone anniversaries. Those who progress from entry level earn paid sick leave.
The owner of the commercial bulk trash and junk removal business said he’s tailored incentives to encourage loyal, skilled workers to stay and benefit from the company’s growth. But he worries he’d have to cut perks or hours or eliminate jobs if he’s required to provide everyone paid sick leave.
"I take the responsibility of taking care of my people seriously," said Kevin Daly, TurboHaul’s president, whose 21-year-old company employs 30 full-time and five part-time workers. "I just don’t like people telling me how I should go about that. I feel I know best how to reward them."
The business owner is among opponents to two bills making their way through the state legislature, including one proposed by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan and another sponsored by Democrats. Both are scheduled for hearings Thursday before the House Economic Matters and Senate Finance committees.
The proposals have come up as worker advocates around the country have pushed employers to expand leave benefits and boost minimum wage rates. Seven states, 30 cities and two counties, including Montgomery County, have passed paid sick day laws, while five states and Washington have passed paid family and medical leave laws, according to a report this month by the Center for American Progress.
Helper Kahlil Alston, who has worked at the company for about a year (left), senior plant manager Alex Aparicio (who has been there for 18 years) and Kevin Daley, president/CEO of TurboHaul at the company headquarters.
Helper Kahlil Alston, who has worked at the company for about a year (left), senior plant manager Alex Aparicio (who has been there for 18 years) and Kevin Daley, president/CEO of TurboHaul at the company headquarters.
The Democrat-sponsored Healthy Working Families Act would require businesses with 15 or more employees to give full-time and part-time workers one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.
That would go a long way toward preventing people from going to work sick or sending a sick child to school to avoid losing income or risk being fired, says Working Matters, a coalition of union, advocacy, faith, community organizations and other social groups behind the bill. The group says some 750,000 workers in Maryland have no access to earned paid sick days, including half of full-time workers who earn less than $35,000 a year.
Helper Kahlil Alston, who has worked at the company for about a year (left), senior plant manager Alex Aparicio (who has been there for 18 years) and Kevin Daley, president/CEO of TurboHaul at the company headquarters.
Helper Kahlil Alston, who has worked at the company for about a year (left), senior plant manager Alex Aparicio (who has been there for 18 years) and Kevin Daley, president/CEO of TurboHaul at the company headquarters.
The governor’s version took into account objections employers have raised over the four years the issue has been debated in the General Assembly, a spokesman said. It would require employers with 50 or more workers per business location to offer paid sick leave for those working 30 hours a week or more. That would cover 400,000 people who are not getting those benefits now, said Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer.
For smaller employers, Hogan’s proposal would offer a tax break of up to $20,000 if they allow workers to earn up to five sick days.
"The governor believes his common sense proposal offers great benefits to workers without unnecessarily harming and overburdening small businesses," Mayer said.
Business owners, though, have argued that increasing benefits would force them to raise prices or cut expenses and put a damper on hiring or expanding. Employers that start giving benefits to entry-level workers might need to increase benefits for more experienced workers, they say.
Most Maryland employers already offer some form of paid time off, said Mike O’Halloran, state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
"Our members feel very strongly that offering such a benefit as paid leave is best left to an employer and their employees to determine," O’Halloran said. "Employers, not legislators, … are signing the front of the paychecks. They know what money is going in and going out and know what they can afford."
Any tax relief to help small struggling businesses should stand on its own merit, he added.
"We don’t think there needs to be a carrot and a stick," he said.
Business advocates view the Working Matters proposal as especially onerous.
"It would be the most generous sick leave policy in the country," said Cailey Tolle, president of the Maryland Retailers Association. "We can’t support a one-size-fits all mandate."
Working Matters counters that businesses and the economy would benefit along with workers from earned sick days. Reduced employee turnover would save state businesses $132 million a year, the group says.
Darlene Butler-Jones, 58, started working at Giant Food almost 20 years ago when she was a widowed, single mother of three and had to juggle working with caring for children who got sick. The Fort Washington resident said she and co-workers need paid sick days to recover from their own illnesses and to care for children and other family members.
"There are days when I don’t feel well," or am called upon to care for a sick grandchild, said Butler-Jones, a meat wrapper/cutter in the Largo store. But "we’ll have to go to work if we don’t want to use a vacation day" or haven’t earned paid time off, she said.
"When you don’t feel well, you don’t want to go to work, but you feel confined to making a choice between family or health or a job," Butler-Jones said. "That’s a position no one should ever be placed into."
The grocer is evaluating the proposed leave legislation’s impact on its stores, said Jamie Miller, a Giant spokesman. Benefits for its 17,000 workers covered by the United Food and Commercial Workers union are determined through collective bargaining, he added.
"Giant has a longstanding commitment to providing a competitive benefits package to all our part-time and full-time associates," Miller said in an email. "Our associates remain among the highest compensated grocery workers in the Baltimore-Washington area, and they receive excellent benefits," such as paid time off that includes vacations and personal holidays.
Towson Hot Bagels, which has 70 employees, restaurants in Towson, Canton and Timonium and a fourth opening in Charles Village in March, cannot afford paid sick leave for hourly workers but is exploring how it could, said Tony Scotto, president and CEO of the family-owned business.
But a government mandate could pose a hardship, especially for small and family-owned businesses, which all too often don’t get credit for benefits they’re already providing, Scotto said.
"Sometimes we give benefits in others ways, that’s the beauty of small businesses," he said, citing quarterly bonuses, free meals and employee appreciation dinners the bagel eatery provides. "If we had to offer a week to everybody, at the end of the day some of the things would have to changes."
Some businesses have found that flexible leave policies work best. Allovue, an education technology company in Baltimore with 22 employees, believes it would be in compliance with either of the current state proposals because it offers 22 days of paid time off that can be used for any purpose, said CEO Jess Gartner. But requiring a certain number of days for sick leave could restrict employees’ freedom, Gartner said.
"We like to err on the side of giving as much freedom with personal days as possible because people have different circumstances in their lives," she said.
DuClaw Brewing Co., headquartered in Rosedale, provices paid sick leave to its 28 mostly production employees, said Brian Walsh, the beer company’s marketing director.
"Everyone here appreciates that, and [owner] Dave Benfield feels strongly about it," Walsh said. "It’s definitely a go-go environment here, and anything can happen. Having a safety net, we feel that’s valuable."
At TurboHaul, which handles trash pick up mostly for apartment and office complexes in the Baltimore Washington region, entry level workers — about half the workforce — have no paid time off and must take sick time unpaid. Drivers qualify for five days of paid time off after the first year, then earn an additional day for each year. They can use paid time off for sick time or vacation.
Daly said the company has a liberal absence policy for both personal issues and sick time, with no requirement for doctor’s notes.
"We work with employees in both cases, with no threat to their job," he said. "We have found that when we are liberal with giving days off, we have few difficulties with employees abusing the privilege, or getting sick often."
lorraine.mirabella@baltsun.com
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