On Thursday morning, the New York City Council overrode a veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) to pass a new paid sick days requirement for businesses with more than 15 employees. Employees at those businesses will earn five paid sick days each year. The law will be implemented in 2014 and initially it will apply to companies with 20 or more employees; after a year and a half it will apply to businesses with 15 or more workers. Smaller businesses will be required to provide their employees with five unpaid sick days. The victory for both workers and consumers makes New York the largest city with a paid sick days requirement.

Workers in states all over the United States are joining a movement for earned paid sick leave and seeing major victories. It's common sense and smart business. Now, business owners are getting on board. 

Nearly 300 small businesses have joined a campaign to support laws that require employers to give their workers paid sick days. The businesses have endorsed the Businesses for Earned Leave campaign, a partnership of American Sustainable Business Council, the Main Street Alliance and Social Venture Network. On Tuesday, the coalition launched a website supporting the campaign, Better Workplaces, Better Businesses.

Last week, despite the tremendous benefits paid sick days would have for the city’s working families, businesses, economy and public health, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the paid sick days bill passed by the City Council last month. As National Partnership President Debra L. Ness said, the move was “short-sighted and the City Council should act quickly to make its effect short-lived.”

New York City workers will receive, starting next year, five paid sick days a year to care for themselves or an ill family member under a measure the New York City Council passed (45-3) this afternoon. The vote culminates a four-year effort by a powerful coalition of workers, unions and community groups.

This is a cross-post from Working America's Main Street blog. 

Lawmakers in Michigan are still pushing a bill that would keep cities and towns from making their own decisions about paid sick days laws. We call them “preemption bills”— restaurant lobbyists and their allies call it the “kill shot” to paid sick days.

The Healthy Families Act, a federal bill that would allow workers to earn seven paid sick days a year, was just introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Portland, Ore., was the most recent city to pass an ordinance granting workers earned paid sick leave. Will New York follow suit?

Visit the MomsRising/AFL-CIO blogger carnival. 

In most of the developed world, when people get sick or have a sick child, they take a sick day and take care of themselves and their families, keeping their co-workers, customers and clients safe. And they rest comfortably, knowing that getting sick won’t mean they can’t pay the rent or provide their children with needed school supplies. That’s the way it should be. In most of the advanced world, paid sick days are a right that protects working families, while at the same time boosting businesses and the economy.

On Wednesday, April 24, the AFL-CIO and MomsRising will be hosting a Twitter chat at 2 p.m. ET about earned paid sick leave. Follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #WellnessWed. 

This is a cross-post from Working America's Main Street blog. 

With 12 votes needed, only 11 members of the Philadelphia City Council were willing to override Mayor Michael Nutter’s veto of the sick leave bill. For the second time in three years, corporate interests defeated a measure that would allow more than 180,000 Philadelphians to finally earn sick days.

“I’m very disappointed,” said city councilman Bill Greenlee, who tried but failed to get the 12 votes needed to override Mayor Nutter’s veto.  “I’m particularly disappointed for the 180,000 workers who could have had a benefit that other cities are providing.”

Earlier this week, we told you that a coalition of unions and community groups were able to move a paid sick leave bill to near fruition in New York City, while we also brought you a column by Ellen Bravo, director of Family Values @ Work, that explored the momentum behind the growing paid sick leave drive in cities across the country.