On Monday, Dec. 22, 2008, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce (MMAC) filed a lawsuit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court asking the court to find that the Milwaukee Sick Leave Ordinance, passed through referendum in November and set for enforcement beginning in February, is invalid and unenforceable.
The MMAC is also requesting that the court grant its request for a temporary and permanent injunction prohibiting the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin from enforcing the ordinance. A hearing on this injunction request is set for January 29, 2009.
The Milwaukee sick leave policy mandates that all employers with a place of business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin must provide a minimum of one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked by an employee, not to exceed 72 hours of sick leave for an employee in a calendar year. Small businesses, as defined in the ordinance (generally, those with 10 or fewer employees in a given week), will only be required to allow accrual of up to 40 hours of sick leave per calendar year.
In its lawsuit, the MMAC raises a number of concerns with the ordinance. It alleges first that the language of the ordinance as it was stated on the ballot failed to properly inform the electorate about the nature and “several material aspects” of the ordinance, including:
- what situations, other than being sick, were covered by this leave;
- the amount of leave that could be accrued;
- that the language allows for perpetrators as well as victims of domestic abuse to use this accrued leave to attend to legal and other related activities; and
- that the ordinance, because of its confidentiality provision as well as its failure to discriminate between victim and perpetrator of domestic violence improperly prohibits an employer from cooperating with a police investigation into incidents of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking, including providing any health-related information.
Second, the MMAC claims that the ordinance is improperly setting a minimum wage requirement for Milwaukee and thus is illegal under Chapter 104 of the Wisconsin Statutes and the Wisconsin Constitution. The MMAC also alleges that the ordinance is invalid in that it “is logically inconsistent with and violates the spirit and general policy of” the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Act and is unconstitutionally vague. Additionally, the MMAC raises claims that the ordinance constitutes unauthorized regulation of businesses located outside Milwaukee and is an abuse of the city’s police powers. Finally, as noted above, the MMAC has requested that the court bar the city from enforcing the ordinance.
Should the court deny the injunction request, the city will begin enforcing the ordinance in February 2009. We will inform you of the court’s decision following the January 29 hearing.