Carnival fun for all p.6
“Eight Minutes” p.3
STREETVIBES
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A u g u s t 2 0 0 8 • I s s u e 1 4 5 • C i n c i n n a t i ’s A l t e r n a t i v e N e w s S o u r c e
Can’t Afford to Get Sick Referendum would mandate paid sick leave
By Gregory Flannery Editor
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oters in Ohio could decide Nov. 4 that workers have a legal right to paid sick days. Under current law, employers decide whether to pay workers when they are too ill to work. Aside from workers covered by a union contract, employees are subject to their bosses’ policies. The proposed Ohio Healthy Families Act would require employers with 25 or more employees to provide seven paid sick days each year to employees working 30 hours or more per week. Employees working fewer hours would have a pro-rated amount of paid sick days. But putting the referendum on the ballot hasn’t been easy. The Ohioans for Healthy Families Coalition, a network of more than 190 community organizations
and leaders, collected more than 275,000 signatures on petitions supporting the proposal last year. In December 2007, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner certified the petitions as having
By Lynne Ausman Staff Writer
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The resolution describes the number in terms that might be used to describe drug abuse or infectious viruses. “The unchecked proliferation of these agencies has the potential to negatively impact the residential character and the neighborhood
he abuses associated with day labor are well known: Senseless fees. Long waits. Long rides. Moldy lunches. Buses that seems about to fall apart. Waiting in line at 4 a.m. Unsafe conditions. Hard work. Long hours. Dirty work. Inadequate or nonexistent restrooms. Small paychecks. Check-cashing fees. The DNR list – “Do not return.” One Cincinnati man and his co-workers had been packaging pizzas for For more 12 hours information straight – about Day no break, Labor go to no lunch. dlop.org As the rest of his “line” started to leave, he followed, ready to get on the van to go back to the labor hall, get paid and hopefully get some rest. But he was shocked when there was no van to pick him up, no phone call to the factory saying the van had been delayed – nothing, no one; just the uncertainty of being left in the middle of nowhere, with no money, no resources, not even a pay phone to use. He and the rest of the line sat and waited – waited for a ride, a phone call, the sight of another person. It was freezing cold at 1 o’clock in the morning. No one came until 6 a.m. The van was dropping off another group of day labor-
See SERVICES p.6
See LABOR p.12
“A number of independent studies have been done that show this will save employers money.” well over the 120,000 valid signatures required. Under a provision in the Ohio Constitution, however, the state legislature got the first crack at the measure. “They then had four months to pass the bill or pass something we found acceptable,” says Dale Butland, spokesman for the coalition. “They refused to even schedule a vote on the bill. They held a perfunc-
Luke, a volunteer, collects signatures for a ballot referendum that would require employers to pay workers for sick days. Photo by Andrew Anderson.
tory hearing, on which we impossible. The bottom got 24 hours’ notice. We wanted to bring in expert See SICK p.6 witnesses, but that made it
An Excess of Good Deeds
Council moves to limit human-services agencies By Gregory Flannery Editor
O
ver-the-Rhine has too many people trying to help other people, according to a resolution passed last month by Cincinnati City Council. The resolution establishes a policy “that social-service agencies and programming shall not be concentrated in a single geographic area and shall not locate in an area that is deemed impacted.” The resolution doesn’t define “impacted,” an ambiguity that is one reason a
“Some of the people who are trying to degrade us have never even visited us. To make judgments about us without even knowing what we’re doing is pretty unfair.”
consortium of non-profit groups is contemplating a lawsuit challenging the resolution, according to Georgine Getty, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. The resolution, sponsored by Councilman Christopher Bortz, won approval in an 8-1 vote. Councilman Cecil Thomas was the lone dis-
Nonprofit Day Labor Hall Coming to Cincinnati
senter. Over-the-Rhine has too many charities, Bortz says. “There are 120 socialservice agencies in Overthe-Rhine, more than one per block,” he says. “That doesn’t seem a very balanced way of approaching it.”