Sarah Ruiz-Grossman
House cleaners and nannies in San Francisco already have the right to paid sick leave — but now officials want to make it easier for them to actually get that paid time off.
Supervisor Hilary Ronen introduced a new city ordinance on Tuesday that would allow domestic workers who work for private employers to accrue sick leave benefits, even if they work in chunks of a few hours at a time for several different employers. If passed, the new law would also mandate that the city create an app for workers and employers to input a worker’s hours and calculate the pay they’re owed for time off.
Under current law, domestic workers are technically supposed to get one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours they work, but “it almost never happens,” Ronen said at a rally for the legislation on Tuesday. Privately employed house cleaners and nannies often work a few hours a week or month for several different employers, many of whom don’t know that they owe their workers sick leave pay. This proposed law, written by domestic workers with legislative staff, would be the first of its kind in the country, Ronen’s team said.