Vote Yes on 300 or Move to China.

I have just filled out my ballot for this year's City and County of Denver election, inking the "Yes" box on Ballot Question 300 with thick, black pen.  If there was a "Hell Yes" on this one, I'd ink that in too.  Basically it's a city ordinance that would mandate paid sick leave for all employees working within the boundaries of Denver.  Let me repost the language exactly here so there's no confusion:
                         
                       Shall the voters for the City and County of Denver adopt an ordinance that will provide that all employees (full-time, part-time and temporary) when they become within the geographic boundaries of Denver earn one hour of paid sick and safe time for every thirty hours worked, limited to seventy-two hours a year in the case of businesses with 10 or more total employees and forty hours in the case of businesses with fewer than ten total employees, to be used for themselves or to care for a family member (related by blood, marriage, legal adoption or affinity) in case of illness, need for preventative care or domestic violence needs, except that employees of new businesses with fewer than ten employees will not accrue paid sick and safe time until the business has been in operation for one year, and under said ordinance retaliation for use of paid sick and safe time will be prohibited and employers will be required to give notice to employees of their rights and keep records related to payment of paid sick time?

Yes vote means this will be passed and all workers get paid sick leave, No vote means No, everything stays the same.

In case you were confused.
Because despite the mild and fairly clear language of this ballot initiative, the Denver "business" community, (and by that I mean mostly large, chain restaurants that are head-quartered elsewhere), have grabbed the media's megaphone away from true small business owners, and are trumpeting  the "news" that what 300 proponents REALLY want to do is send violent criminals on all-expense-paid vacations in the Bahamas to rehabilitate themselves.
I'm only exaggerating a little.
If you're like me, you didn't even know what Initiative 300 was all about when you first started getting mailers and fliI ers pleading with you to vote NO!!  on this horrible, evil, ill-timed, stupid idea.
And if you're at all like me, that raises some eyebrows right off the bat.  Since I hadn't heard of it, and yet there was this group that was already against it, in a big, loud way that made it obvious that they had money, my natural instinct was to be suspicious.  My gut feeling that followed the instinct, and is based on experience as well as cynicism and prejudice, was that if the moneyed interests were totally against this thing, I was probably going to be for it.  That's just how life has played out so far. 

And that's why I wasn't going to spout off on this issue at first, but now, with the election less than a week away and b.s. coming fast and furious, I feel the need to contribute to this lopsided discussion in a big way.  As a small business owner, and as a former employee of many, many, low-level positions that were full time and yet curiously had absolutely no paid time off or other benefitsperhaps I can offer a unique, yet universal perspective on the issue.

First of all, in full disclosure let me say that my small business has no employees, per se.  It's basically me, and some independent contractors who help me out either on regular gigs that are assigned to them, or just when I need several extra pairs of arms.  My business is eco-friendly landscaping, and landscape maintenance, and eco-friendly housecleaning, with some pet-care thrown in to keep it interesting.  Having even "part-time" employees makes no sense for me because a large part of the work is seasonal, and the other half is just inconsistent enough to make the paperwork of having actual employees more trouble than it's worth.  Plus, as a former independent contractor myself, I feel it's most beneficial to the worker this way.  They get paid more per hour, and if they work efficiently and use their supplies wisely, they can make quite a bit more money overall-  as opposed to having me take taxes, Social Security, Medicare, yada yada out of their paychecks before they even see it.  Less paperwork and headache for me, more money for them, so it's all good. 

I realize not all businesses can do this, and are in fact required to make everyone working for them an employee, else they get in big, big trouble with all sorts of government.  At all of the small business classes and seminars I've ever taken, having employees is the number one fear that stymies entrepreneurs from the burrito guy to software start-ups.  That's because it's terrifying, not only to navigate all the Federal, State, City and County regulations, but to have the responsibility for peoples' means of living, essentially.  Your business plan may have looked like fool-proof gold on paper, with nothing but profits, Profits, PROFITS!!  ad infinitum - but once you factor employees into the equation...it's like... oh, my.... where did all my money go? 

So I get that.  I'm not insensitive to the pains that small-business owners face on a daily basis, just to keep the doors open and everyone fed.  Here's the thing.  If you get past your white-knuckle, Come-to-Jesus-with-Capitalism fears as everyone must, there are scads of people ready and willing to show you how to write a business plan that includes employees where you can STILL make money and live your dreams.  Employees are a fact of life.  Suck it up and deal with it, is what I'm trying to say.  And if you look around, there sure seem to be a lot of businesses with employees on the payroll that are doing just fine.  My business is actually more of the exception than the rule.  When I do have to, for legal and tax reasons, have employees rather than independent contractors, I know full well that I will not be able to treat these employees as independent contractors.  In other words, they will be my responsibility, and one of the core responsibility of a business owner/founder is making sure the people who are doing all that work for you and earning all the moolah are well taken care of.  In other words, sick leave is a basic right of every employee.  Full-time, part-time, term-limited, temps, whatever.  I don't care.  You're an employee, that means you're under the umbrella of a larger entity that has agreed to profit from your labor, and in exchange for that, you get some basic job protections.  Like sick leave, for Christ's sake.

Let me illustrate some examples.  From 1998-2000, roughly, I was working full-time during the school-year as a substitute teacher for Denver Public Schools.  Even though I had some long-term assignments and was considered staff at those schools, I got absolutely no benefits or paid leave of any kind. In fact, the first day of my first long-term assignment in an elementary school, as the Art/Music/Drama teacher, I had a doctor's appointment in the morning that I couldn't change, and so arrived at the school about 45 minutes past the bell.  When I checked in at the front office, the secretary told me to wait a moment because the principal wanted to speak to me.  I waited, and in the meantime some kids wandered in to see the nurse or something, and they were standing behind me.  The principal came out of her office and commenced screaming incoherently almost immediately, and I assumed she was addressing the kids.  I actually turned around and looked at the kids like, "what have you guys done to deserve THIS?  Not that even a kid deserves to be addressed like this."  And they just shook their terrified heads and looked right back at ME.   It was then I realized that the principal was screaming at me, like I was an errant 5th grader and not a full-grown, professional staff member.  Now, most people, upon realizing this, may have turned on their heels and walked out of that school that instant- and I too, considered doing just that.  She wound up her incoherent tirade with ".... and so I cannot HAVE this, do you understand me?"  and I nodded my head not because I actually understood her, just because I wanted the screaming to stop.  All the while thinking, I need this job.  I need this job, I need this job.  Just get through today and they might decide to keep you, and steer clear of the crazy woman.
I don't think it matters that the principal was in fact a rage-addict who had un-medicated, untreated bipolar disorder.  It also doesn't matter that I grew up in a household with the same sort of untreated psychosis coming from one or both parents, depending on the day, and so to survive I learned to do whatever it takes to appease the crazy people, if even for a moment.  No one should have to put up with that kind of abuse just because they desperately need a job.  In this case, the office and the principal of the school had been forewarned of my doctor's appointment, and knew that I would be late that day because of it.  And still, what it came down to was, put up with this abuse, or hit the road.  She got away with treating her staff like that (not just me) because everyone there needed those jobs very badly, and because the policies in place let her do it.  Clearly, if she wasn't treating her own profound mental illness, she sure as hell wasn't going to acknowledge anyone else's.
Now, I don't know if you've ever been around kids, and lots of them at once, but they are pretty much snot-nosed, walking vectors of disease.  It's a good thing many of them are cute.  After my auspicious first day, it only took 3 more days for me to come down with the most hellacious cold/flu/sinus infection I've ever had in my life.  I took one day off, but when I still wasn't any better after the weekend, I had to make the tough call again of going in sick/feeling like utter crap, or losing my job.  So I went in.  I could barely speak, much less yell at the kids all day in a foreign language, as I was required to do, and somehow made it through that day.  And the next.  And the next.  Lucky for me, I infected so many of the kids in those first few contagious days that their numbers dwindled steadily over the following few weeks.  Making my job somewhat easier.  I remember speaking to the gym teacher at lunch one day, telling him how sick I was but I came in anyway because I had the sneaking suspicion that the principal would have told me to not come back at all if I called in sick- and he said, without hesitation, "oh yeah, she would have fired you on the spot.  This is great that you came in- it shows her that you really want the job."   I looked at him like, oh so you come from a dysfunctional family too?   It was then I realized that I was in a sort of insane asylum.
Because this is utterly psychotic, people.
Do you really want sick, contagious people teaching your kids?  Serving their lunches?  Serving YOUR lunches?  Making change at the grocery store?  Stocking your food?  Cleaning up your table?  Driving trucks all hopped-up on flu medicine because they have no choice?
I didn't think so.  Even if workers aren't deathly ill on the job and coughing in your soup, the effect that no paid leave has on employees is demoralizing to say the least.  We have ourselves an overworked, stressed-to-the-max, exhausted workforce at the end of their mental, emotional and physical ropes because they are terrified of taking a sick day lest they lose their jobs.  And many of these people are operating heavy equipment. 

No, this isn't China.  Yet.  But it might as well be.  Several times I've wanted to ask my employers of the last ten years, "oh- did you think you had outsourced me and this position to Southeast Asia or something?  Because I'm still here, and this is America. Not a rug-making sweatshop in the 3rd world."   When I was a temporary/seasonal/contract worker back in my archaeology days, the treatment was sometimes better, sometimes worse.  Quite often we were told to work faster, and more accurately, for less money, because whoever was in charge basically couldn't do a budget to save their lives, and /or were not accustomed to jumping in and helping out.  But even then, we got semi-paid sick leave, or an accrual of "comp" hours that we could use however we wanted, as long as we got our work done.  Still, women and minorities were (and probably still are) the most vulnerable workers in the field, because project directors are watching like hawks for any sign of weakness that could possibly justify them firing and replacing you with a white, male crony.  So because of that, many times  I went out in sub-freezing temperatures on surveys with a head cold at the very least, and without much sleep. (shivering in one's tent for 8 hours because the project director is too cheap to pay for motels does not count as sleep). Thank god I wasn't interacting with the public too much back then.   There would have been a swine-flu-wide swath of disease cut from Winslow, Arizona all the way to Tucumcari, with my name on it. 
I have more stories just like this, and I bet you do too.  It may be too late to pass this measure, this year.  But we will get some kind of humane law passed at some point, and hopefully it won't take another e-coli or listeria epidemic to do it.