“Today, after a summer of hard work by advocates and workers, the Philadelphia City Council has secured a much-needed victory for workers in the city. By voting 15 to 2 to require businesses that contract with or receive subsidies from the city to provide their workers with access to paid sick days, the City Council has shown its commitment to ensuring workers have this basic right — and taken an important first step toward a citywide standard.

We commend every Philadelphia City Council member who supported this badly-needed family friendly policy. They have prioritized a basic workplace standard that is good for workers, families, businesses and public health. We hope this victory paves the way for all workers in the city to have this common sense right.

This victory for Philadelphia workers is a testament to the hard work of the more than 100 organizations that make up the Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces and its allies. They have shown that even in the face of strong opposition, significant advances can be made.

There couldn’t be a better time to enact policies that protect jobs and ensure families can stay afloat. The support for paid sick days we have seen in Philadelphia helps to continue the national momentum for these protections that started in Connecticut this summer and continued to Seattle last month, when those jurisdictions joined San Francisco and Washington, D.C., in guaranteeing workers the right to earn paid sick days. This is just the beginning. We look forward to more victories at the local, state and federal levels.”