Sick Leave Bill Would Affect 6 Percent of City Employers

You've got to hand it to city councilors Ken Sanchez and Don Harris; they're either incredibly bold in their attempts to deceive the public, or stunningly uninformed. Maybe both.

These two geniuses plan to introduce a mandatory sick leave ordinance that would require all companies in the city with 50 or more employees to provide mandatory sick leave to their workers.

The announcement made for a good headline, but it failed to mention that this proposed law would affect a massive 6 percent of the city's employers.

That's right, 6 percent.

That's because 94 percent of all employers in Bernalillo County have fewer than 50 workers.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2015 there were 15,746 private sector establishment in the county. Of those, 14,846 had fewer than 50 employees. A grand total of 900 had 50 or more workers.

When you figure that probably all of the 390 establishment with more than 100 workers offer their employees sick leave, you have, really, a minuscule about of employers that would be affected by their proposed law.

I'm not saying that mandating employers to provide sick leave to their workers is good, or that that's government's role, I'm saying that their proposed bill would affect almost no one and that they should be called out for this deception or ignorance.

So here's a look at employers by size in Bernalillo County:

1 to 4 employees: 7,798

5 to 9 employees: 3,080

10 to 19 employees: 2,321

20 to 49 employees: 1,647

50 to 99 employees: 510

100 to 249 employees: 307

250 to 499 employees: 58

500 to 999 employees: 16

1,00 or more employees: 9

Here's a graph that tells the story. Remember, establishments with fewer than 50 workers wouldn't be affected by the proposed ordinance.