City Council Speaker Christine Quinn may be about to face a critical test: Can she stick to her principles in the face of pressure from a key part of her political base?
For two years, Quinn has refused to allow a full council vote on one of the labor unions’ pet projects: a bill forcing all city employers to offer paid sick leave.
Until now, the speaker has sided with those who say the bill, which requires as many as nine paid sick days a year, would hurt small-business owners — at a time when the economy is still struggling.
But as The Post’s Sally Goldenberg reported Wednesday, the NYC Campaign for Paid Sick Days plans to roll out prominent gay New Yorkers, on whom Quinn relies for key political support, to publicly oppose her expected 2013 mayoral bid if she doesn’t get behind the bill.
Quinn may have to choose between her traditional supporters and her principles — a situation she generally tries to avoid.
As Post columnist Michael Goodwin noted this week, the speaker tries “desperately to be all things to all people . . . by splitting all the babies in half.”
Problem is, this is no time for compromise: As these pages have made clear, mandatory sick-leave is not only unnecessary — New York companies offer far more paid leave than elsewhere — but it will hurt many businesses that simply can’t afford to be more generous.
Some, no doubt, will be forced to cut jobs to pay the extra costs. Or leave New York.
Yet lately Quinn’s been showing more and more deference to her party’s hard-left wing and its powerful enablers, the unions.
Plus, her likely primary opponents, and a veto-proof majority of her members, all back the bill.
So there’s cause for concern.
This week, 177 small-business owners in the city warned Quinn that it would hurt them financially and slow job growth.
Quinn will have to pick sides.
Her choice may speak volumes about her fitness to run the city.