A war is brewing over City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s refusal to allow a vote on a bill to mandate paid sick days, The Post has learned.
Thirty council members have joined an effort by good-government group Common Cause that slams Quinn, the Democratic mayoral front-runner, for blocking a vote for three years on a union-backed measure mandating that businesses in the city with more than five employees offer five paid sick days a year.
The measure has the support of a majority in the council.
The move is particularly intriguing given the timing. Members are generally loathe to buck the speaker during budget negotiations, and she formally kicked off her mayoral campaign just Sunday.
A letter will be publicized online today and sent to Quinn, who says mandating that private companies offer paid sick days would hurt small businesses.
Privately, however, her campaign is struggling with how to handle the contentious issue that gives Democratic mayoral rival Bill de Blasio continuing opportunities to pummel her.
“Just as there is a problem with term limits being pushed through, there is a problem with certain bills not making it to the floor. Paid sick leave is the most recent high-profile example,” said Common Cause Executive Director Susan Lerner.
In another intrigue yesterday, Quinn’s official campaign Web site was replicated on another site with a similar name that added a fake letter from Quinn announcing a vote on the bill.
The owner of the phony Web site requested anonymity from the Panama-based company that registered the domain-name spoof, so it was unclear who was behind the trick.
De Blasio capitalized on the fake site to again call on Quinn to allow a vote.
A council committee is due to hold a hearing on the bill on March 22.