Scott blocks paid sick-time vote in Orange, statewide

The Republican governor sided with Walt Disney World, Darden Restaurants, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and a broad array of powerful business interests that argued the ban was needed to avoid a patchwork of local employment rules for companies.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill Friday that would block local governments from enacting mandatory paid-sick-time measures, such as the one pending in Orange County.

"This bill fosters statewide uniformity, consistency and predictability in Florida's employer-employee relationships," Scott said in a statement. "These fundamental elements are essential to ensuring a business-friendly environment that supports job creation."

Labor and progressive groups have made recent pushes for mandatory paid sick time in Orange and Miami-Dade counties to help out lower-paid workers who don't often get that benefit. Businesses mostly opposed to the idea say it overreaches into a company's affairs and should be left to the market.

The governor made the decision in rapid fashion. Scott's office took only four of the 15 days he had to legally review the bill before signing it — which supporters said showed he wasn't concerned about potential political blow back from activists who called the measure an attack on the working class and women.

"He believes that it's important to our recovering economy and increasing jobs that he affirm the importance of this legislation," said the bill's Senate sponsor, David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs. "We simply do not need an inconsistent patchwork of regulation from one city to the next or one county to the next."

Scott rejected calls by progressives and South Florida leaders for him to veto it. With other parts of the country, such as New York City, San Francisco and Seattle, passing similar sick-time measures, it's an issue that now has a national scope.

In Florida, it could be used by Democrats as a political weapon next year. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, asked for a veto this week, noting the bill hit women hardest because they are more often unable to call in sick or care for ill children.

"The fight for earned sick time will continue," said Stephanie Porta of Organize Now in a statement. "Floridians believe in earned sick time for hardworking families, and we don't give up when we believe in something."

Organize Now had led the coalition of groups that backed the 2012 ballot referendum in Orange County. They teamed with Democrats, Hispanics and others to collect more than 50,000 petition signatures from voters to get it on the local ballot.

But after intense lobbying by Disney, Darden, Mears Transportation and other potent tourism interests, Orange commissioners on Sept. 11 voted 4-3 to keep it off the ballot. The groups behind it sued, and a judicial panel later ruled county leaders violated their charter by blocking it.

The three-judge circuit panel ordered it on the next ballot. Commissioners soon after voted to send it to Orange voters in the August 2014 primary contest.