The Healthy Families Act of Ohio
- Before the proposal of the Healthy Families Act, Ohio had no specific state law of this type. Businesses in Ohio had to conform to the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). This law requires that all businesses with 50 or more employees had to provide uncompensated sick leave. The FMLA required that businesses allow eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for personal or family medical reasons. An employee is eligible if he has been with the company for 12 months, has worked at least 1,250 hours in the last 12 months and works at a location where the business has at least 50 employees in a 75-mile radius.
- Businesses with 25 or more employees must be provided with seven days of paid sick leave per year to employees who work at least 30 hours a week. The Act would also apply to companies that were based out of Ohio, but had at least 25 employees working in the state. Employees who work fewer than 30 hours per week must receive a prorated number of paid sick days. These days may be used for any absence resulting from any injury, illness or medical condition of the employee or a member of the employee's family. A doctor's note is required for any absence of three consecutive days or longer. This note must be provided within 30 days of the absence.
- Ohio would be the only state to require that businesses give their employees paid sick leave. This would put Ohio's economy at a disadvantage. New businesses would not want to move into Ohio, and the added financial strain might cause some businesses to close. These disadvantages could decimate Ohio's economy. It was also possible that employees could take advantage of the paid sick leave.
Because a doctor's note would only be required for absences of three consecutive days or more, employees could take a couple days off and claim that the absence was for illness. Furthermore, since employees would have a month to turn in a doctor's note, an employee could be paid for his sick leave before turning in documentation that he actually was sick.
In addition, the wording of the Healthy Families Act was vague on some points. For instance, if a company already had a sick leave policy that was equivalent or better than the Healthy Families Act would require, that company would not have to modify its policy. However, the wording of the law was unclear whether general paid leave was equivalent to paid sick leave. - Due to concerns over how the Healthy Families Act would affect Ohio's economy, the bill was removed from the ballot before the November 2008 elections. Ted Strickland, the governor of Ohio at that time, could not support the bill because it would cause Ohio to be the only state in the nation with required paid sick leave for small businesses. Strickland supported worker's right in other matters, but could not approve the Healthy Families Act due to the financial problems it could cause within the state.
- The proponents of the Healthy Families Act of Ohio did not give up after the bill was removed from the ballot. They took their concerns to the national level. Democrats in the House of Representatives had been trying to get a bill similar to the Healthy Families Act of Ohio introduced for many years, and finally succeeded in the Healthy Families Act of 2009. This national bill would require businesses with 15 employees or more to provide seven days of paid sick leave each year and is, in some ways, modeled after the Healthy Families Act of Ohio. In June, 2009, the federal Healthy Families Act was read twice to the Senate, and then referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. This is the first step for a bill to become a law.
