Objective EC.2 Increase jobs that provide healthy, safe and meaningful work

Indicators, Development Targets and Policies/Design Strategies

Indicators Development Targets Policies/Design Strategies
Primary
a. Health insurance coverage

Benchmark: Benchmark: Do 100% of the short and long term jobs provided by the project provide health insurance?

Regulatory Minimum: SF Administrative Code Chapter 14 establishes the Health Care Security Ordinance which (1) creates an employer health care spending requirement and (2) requires the Department of Public Health to create the Health Access Plan, now called Healthy San Francisco. The employer spending requirement requires covered employers to spend a minimum amount of money on health care expenditures for their covered employees.
  • Require that businesses exempt from the San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance provide job-based health insurance to employees.1,2
  • Enforce the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Law, which mandates that "Every employer shall establish, implement and maintain an effective Injury and Illness Prevention Program (Program)."3
  • Use a community benefits agreement to provide and ensure neighborhood economic benefits not otherwise possible via land use and zoning tools (e.g., living wages, local hiring and job training, readiness and placement services, affordable housing, environmental remediation, employer support services, First Source provision, and funds for community programs).4-6
  • Implement a community benefits agreement that ensures that developers will hire locally and provide prevailing and living wages for construction-related jobs during the development process.4-6
  • Enact legislation requiring employers to provide paid sick time for employees or enforce if legislation already exists.7,8
  • Prioritize leasing or selling commercial/retail space to tenants who provide good employee benefits (e.g., retirement benefits, job training, career-path job opportunities).9
  • Prioritize leasing or selling commercial/retail space to tenants who have green business practices.10
  • Prioritize leasing or selling commercial/retail space to businesses that are locally owned.11
b. Occupational non-fatal injury rates No identified development target
Secondary
c. Paid sick days

Benchmark: Benchmark: Do 100% of the jobs provided by the project provide sick day benefits?

Regulatory Minimum: SF Administrative Code Chapter 12W establishes the Paid Sick Leave Ordinance requiring all employers to provide paid sick leave to each employee (including temporary and part-time employees) who perform work in San Francisco. Workers accrue paid sick leave for those hours worked in the city, regardless of where their employer is located.

Health-based Rationale

  • Annually nationwide, 18,000 premature deaths are attributable to lack of health coverage. High rates of uninsurance can adversely affect the overall health status of the community, the financial stability of its members, health care institutions and providers, and the access of its residents to certain services, such as emergency departments and trauma centers.12
  • Families with at least one full-time, full-year worker are more than twice as likely to have health insurance coverage, compared to families whose wage earners work as part-time employees (less than 35 hours per week), as contingent labor (e.g., on a seasonal or temporary basis, as employees of contractors, self-employed), or in which there is no wage earner.13
  • Individuals without health insurance frequently forego timely health care, suffer more severe illness, and are more likely to die a premature death than their insured counterparts.14
  • The lack of sick leave benefits is associated with workers 1) coming to work sick, 2) working at lower levels of productivity, 3) risking infecting other workers, 4) experiencing longer recovery times, 5) experiencing worse health outcomes in children, and 5) utilizing higher cost health care down the line.15
  • Occupational injuries represent adverse health outcomes that are preventable with proper engineering, equipment, and training.16

Established Standards

  1. SF Administrative Code Chapter 14 establishes the Health Care Security Ordinance which (1) creates an employer health care spending requirement and (2) requires the Department of Public Health to create the Health Access Plan, now called Healthy San Francisco. The employer spending requirement requires covered employers to spend a minimum amount of money on health care expenditures for their covered employees. Available at:
  2. SF Administrative Code Chapter 12W establishes the Paid Sick Leave Ordinance requiring all employers to provide paid sick leave to each employee (including temporary and part-time employees) who perform work in San Francisco. Workers accrue paid sick leave for those hours worked in the city, regardless of where their employer is located. Available at:
  3. California’s Paid Family Leave Law provides workers with a maximum of six weeks of partial pay each year while taking time off from work to bond with a newborn baby, newly adopted or foster child, or to care for a seriously ill parent, child, spouse or registered domestic partner. Workers who already pay into the existing State Disability Insurance (SDI) Program are eligible for PFL benefits. For more information, visit: http://www.paidfamilyleave.org/index.html
  4. California Code of Regulations, Title 8, Section 3203 requires every employer to establish, implement and maintain an effective Workplace Injury and Illness Prevention Program. http://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3203.html
  5. United States Occupational Health and Safety Administration Standards and Regulations. http://www.osha.gov/comp-links.html
1. San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement. Health Care Security Ordinance. http://www.sfgov.org/site/olse_index.asp?id=45168
2. San Francisco UC Berkeley Labor Center. Overview of the SF Health Care and Security Ordinance with Questions and Answers. http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/sf_security_ordinance.pdf
3. California Occupational Safety and Health Code Subchapter 7. General Industry Safety Orders Group 1. General Physical Conditions and Structures Orders Introduction. http://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3203.html
4. Community Benefits Law Center (SF). http://www.communitybenefits.org/legal/
5. The Practical Real Estate Lawyer "Understanding Community Benefits Agreements." http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1157613
6. Good Jobs First & California Partnership for Working Families "Community Benefits Agreements: Making Development Projects Accountable." http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/cba2005final.pdf
7. San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement: Paid Sick Leave Ordinance (PSL). http://www.sfgov.org/site/olse_index.asp?id=49389
8. San Francisco Department of Public Health. Paid Sick Day Health Impact Assessment. http://www.sfphes.org/work_sick_day.htm
9. Employee Benefit News "Investing in wellness is good business." http://ebn.benefitnews.com/asset/article/625001/staying-current/investing-wellness-good-business.html?pg=&topicName=health-care
11. BRIDGE Housing and Mandela Foods Cooperative "West Oakland's Seventh Street Readies for Business: Community-led foods cooperative signs storefront lease." http://www.mandelafoods.com/lease.pdf
12. Institute of Medicine, 2004. Project on the Consequences of Uninsurance: An Overview. http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/17/736/Fact%20sheet%20overview.pdf
13. Institute of Medicine, Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance. 2001. Who Goes Without Health Insurance? Who Is Most Likely to Be Uninsured? Ch. 3 in Coverage Matters: Insurance and Health Care. Available at: http://www.nap.edu/html/coverage_matters/ch3.html.
14. Institute of Medicine, Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance. January 2004. Insuring America’s Health: Principles and Recommendations. Available at: http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/17/736/0.pdf.
15. Lovell V. No Time to be Sick: Why Everyone Suffers When Workers Don't have Paid Sick Leave. Washington DC: Institute for Women's Policy Research, 2004.
16. U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Personal protective equipment. Available at http://www.osha.gov/Publications/osha3151.html