PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia City Councilmember Jim Harrity will take another swing at a controversial worker protection bill that Mayor Jim Kenney pocket vetoed on his way out of office.
Harrity says his bill protects some of the lowest-paid workers in the city by requiring that employers rehire workers who get laid off when a business converts from one use to another. This is likely to happen more and more as office building owners struggling for tenants seek new uses for their properties.
The bill passed unanimously last session before being vetoed. Harrity made some technical changes before reintroducing it at this week’s session but opposition remains.
The real estate industry denounced the bill as government interference in private hiring practices and warned it would hurt efforts to rescue downtown office buildings by giving them a new use.
The Chamber of Commerce considers the bill an outrage — an imposition on an employer’s right to hire whomever they want.
Harrity says he isn’t buying the arguments against it and doesn’t see it as much of a hardship on the owners.
“We’re asking them to consider the employees that were there long term,” he said. “They know the building; they know the job.”
Harrity believes it is a “good thing for the working people of Philadelphia.”