Delegate tries again to advance paid sick leave bill Virginia General Assembly Building (Source: WHSV) By Zachary Klosko | Capital News Service | January 29, 2021 at 4:33 PM EST - Updated January 29 at 8:58 PM
RICHMOND,Va. (CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE) - A Virginia House of Delegates committee advanced a measure into appropriations that would provide some essential workers with paid sick leave.
House Bill 2137, introduced by Del. Elizabeth Guzman, D-Woodbridge, reported out of the House Labor and Commerce committee Thursday in a 13-8 vote along party lines.
This is Guzman’s latest effort to pass a paid sick leave bill. Guzman’s previous legislation died in a Senate committee during the Virginia General Assembly special session held last year.
Only a third of workers at the largest service industry employers in Virginia have access to paid sick leave, according to a report by researchers at Harvardâs Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy and the University of California San Francisco.
Advocacy groups, who hope the finding will propel the General Assembly to pass long-debated paid time off legislation, called the report particularly notable because it contradicts arguments made by business groups, who have told lawmakers most large employers already provide the benefit.
âWe might assume that big firms with extensive HR systems and potentially deep pockets of course already provide paid sick leave, but thatâs not true,â said Daniel Schneider, an author on the report and professor of public policy and sociology at Harvard University. âLarge shares of workers at these firms report they donât have access at their jobs.â