San Francisco turns into first metropolis to require sick go away for nannies, cleaners, gardeners

The San Francisco board of directors unanimously passed a landmark law on Tuesday granting cleaners, nannies, gardeners and other domestic workers paid sick leave.

The measure – the first of its kind in the country – would affect approximately 10,000 people in San Francisco who work in private households cleaning, cooking, looking after children, gardening, organizing themselves, or non-medical To provide care for disabled people or the elderly. With many women and immigrants, these workers tend to be poorly paid, supporters said.

“I think these people have been looking after the people of San Francisco for a long time, and it is time we took care of them,” said Supervisor Myrna Melgar. who sponsored the measure together with supervisor Hillary Ronen.

Melgar said her parents had housekeeping and other low-wage jobs when her family immigrated from El Salvador. Her parents couldn’t get sick, “otherwise there would be no food on the table,” she said.

Kimberly Alvarenga, Executive Director of the California Domestic Workers Coalition, welcomed the vote as “an important and historic step on the road to equal opportunities and access to domestic workers.”

The pandemic has exposed domestic workers to vulnerability, she said.

“When they got the virus, when family members got the virus, they had no choice,” Alvarenga said. “If they didn’t go to work, they weren’t getting paid. They were placed in an impossible situation where there was absolutely no economic safety net to support them. This ordinance will offer them a certain fairness so that in the event of illness they can take a day to look after themselves, children or family members. “

The measure entitled ‘Domestic workers equal access to paid sick leave’ takes into account the fact that many domestic workers may work for more than one household. It creates a transferable paid sickness benefit so that workers can get splinters of the sick leave paid from each employer and then pool them together. An employer would pay one hour of wages into the fund for every 30 hours a domestic worker worked.

Martha Garrido, 59, works for about seven to eight households in San Francisco cleaning and grooming the elderly.

“I hope the adoption of this regulation spreads across the country so that other domestic workers know it is possible,” she said in Spanish through an interpreter.

Garrido said she fell while cleaning and broke her arm earlier this year, but had to continue working because she needed the money to send it to her mother and four children in Peru. “We domestic workers, our families are often dependent on us,” she said.

To take effect, the measure requires a second regulatory vote and signature by Mayor London Breed. It would then be a few months before the city hired a private company to manage the benefit program.

The chronicle’s author, Mallory Moench, contributed to this report.

Carolyn Said is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid