Posted September 25, 20191:15 pm
Written by Robert Higgs in The Plain Dealer on 9/25/2019
CLEVELAND , Ohio – City Council is considering legislation that would protect the jobs of people who miss work because they are victims of domestic violence or sexual assaults.
At the least, the legislation would require the city to grant “safe leaves” to any of its employees who are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault. But Councilman Matt Zone favors requiring all employers in Cleveland to provide leaves.
The council could vote as soon as Monday to establish a group to help to draw up legislation. Zone, whose Safety Committee would handle the legislation, hopes the protections can be implemented by next year.
Several other cities already have enacted similar laws, including Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Zone is spearheading the local effort and led a public hearing on the idea Wednesday. At that hearing, advocates said the proposed policy is badly needed to protect victims from being punished as they deal with the complexity of their cases.
“They’re balancing their safety and they’re balancing their jobs and they’re balancing the care for their children,” said Molly Kaplan of the Domestic Violence and Child Advocacy Center.
Zone’s goal is to establish protections that would allow victims to take a leave without fear of losing their jobs.
“Their jobs would be protected, and they could not be fired,” Zone said.
That’s important in a city such as Cleveland that has high rates of poverty, said attorney Alexandria Ruden, a Legal Aid lawyer who represents victims of violence and abuse. If the victims already are struggling to climb out of poverty, losing their jobs because they’re crime victims will just set them back.
“If they do have safe leave so they can address their cases, then when they go back to work, they can become the productive member of society we hope for,” Ruden said.
The law would also be beneficial to employers, said Cassie Gaffney, director of government affairs for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.
Employers would have a sense of stability knowing they won’t have to go through a hiring process to replace workers. The productivity among workers would improve because they know they have job protections, she said.
Zone has been talking about the idea for some time. He said his interest in advocacy for the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault dates from his days working in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court before he was elected to City Council.
He said that while there he could see personally how victims were affected as they tried to deal with their cases.
Zone also wants to gather input from the business community from organizations such as the Greater Cleveland Partnership and the Council of Smaller Enterprises.
The group that will help draft the legislation will include members of Mayor Frank Jackson’s administration, members of City Council and advocates for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse.
The group will sort out the parameters of the leave protections, Zone said. For example, would the leave be paid or unpaid, or some combination of the two.
In some cities, the amount of leave provided varies depending on the size of the employer.
Zone said he could envision a phase-in period in Cleveland, where a “safe leave” ordinance is first applied to city workers and then expanded to include private employers.
Ultimately, though, Zone wants to have legislation drawn up by the end of this year or early in 2020 so that it can be implemented in 2020.