City of Austin attorneys are in a Travis County courtroom Monday morning defending the controversial paid sick leave mandate recently passed by the city council.
Several business groups, including the Texas Association of Business and the National Federation of Independent Business, say the city ordinance is a violation of the Texas Minimum Wage Act. The ordinance guarantees up to 64 hours of paid sick leave a year, which the groups argue equates to paying an employee for time not worked. In doing so, the lawsuit also says that bumps up an employee’s hours above the minimum wage ceiling set by the state. The Texas Minimum Wage Act prohibits a city from interfering with the wages of a private business.
City attorneys say paid sick leave does not equate to wages paid and therefore is not in violation of that law.
Austin is the first city in Texas to have passed its own paid sick leave mandate, which is slated to take effect on October 1.
Similar ordinances have been challenged in court in other states, but have not fared well in efforts to have them overturned.
