Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stood with City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to announce legislation that will significantly expand the city’s Earned Sick Time law, providing important protections to New York workers and improving the city’s public health.

The law was originally passed last May with the help of a broad coalition of advocates and community organizations, including CPD, which, along with A Better Balance, has served as legal counsel to the coalition. Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito announced their plan to immediately expand the protections of the law and to provide for more aggressive enforcement. 

As CPD's Deputy Director Amy Carroll and Make the Road New York's CO-Executive Director Javier Valdés write in the Gotham Gazette, "Their decision is a concrete move to confront and alleviate inequality, and bodes well for all New Yorkers, especially low-income workers and their families who live paycheck to paycheck." Read their full Op-Ed here.

And just yesterday, the City Council of Newark, NJ, voted unanimously to become the nation’s seventh municipality to enact a paid sick days law, and the second in New Jersey following Jersey City. Passage in the Garden State’s two largest cities back-to-back signals major momentum there and nationally.

“The rapid spread of paid sick days from city to city across the country demonstrates strong public support for policy that improves the lives of working families,” said CPD’s Co-Executive Director Andrew Friedman upon the Newark law’s passage.

“Progressive coalitions are leading the way, hand-in-hand with elected officials who are committed to a robust economy that creates good jobs and expands our country’s middle class,” Friedman added.

With strategic policy help from CPD, Newark’s robust law will guarantee paid sick days to all workers, regardless of the size of their workplace.