A paid-sick-leave bill that’s a cinch to pass the City Council will put businesses in a coma, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.
“While this compromise version of the bill is better than previous iterations, it will still hurt small businesses and stifle job creation,” Bloomberg said.
He was responding to the hard-fought compromise that Council Speaker Christine Quinn reached on legislation that would require businesses to provide five days of paid sick time to their employees starting in April 2014.
“The bill is shortsighted economic policy that will take our city in the wrong direction, and I will veto it,” Bloomberg added.
That was fine by Quinn, a mayoral candidate who has been a Bloomberg ally.
“We override the veto,” the Democrat vowed.
Even the top business group in Quinn’s own Manhattan district slammed her bill as a commerce killer.
“It gets harder and harder to do business every year and, in some neighborhoods, it is near impossible to own and operate a small business,” Greenwich Village/Chelsea Chamber of Commerce President Tom Gray said.
The law will cover firms with at least 20 employees in April of next year and those with at least 15 workers by October 2015.