Businesses are concerned about the health of their employees. They are concerned when employees have to walk by addicts with needles sticking out of their arms aggressively begging for spare change. They are concerned when violently aggressive mentally ill people approach customers, and employees have to ask them to move on. They are concerned when hostile addicts park themselves in restrooms for hours doing who knows what when employees are the ones who have to clean up the mess.
So, yes, they are concerned about their employees’ health. To imply otherwise is irresponsible and inaccurate. They are concerned when workers have to repeatedly clean up needles and human waste on their property. Owners are concerned for their employees’ safety!
Where is the city and county while all of this is happening? Are they passing laws that make this behavior illegal? Are they ensuring that the mentally ill get the help they need? Are they keeping violent offenders from visiting the same neighborhood and businesses again and again? No. They are busy banning plastic and making criminals out of tax-paying employers with their one-sided sick-leave-for-all initiative. Are they really that out of touch with what’s going on in our city?
Do county commissioners really they think our employees are clamoring for paid sick days? Our employees want relief from the crime and daily deluge of deranged addicts that threaten them in the parking lot and businesses they work in. Our employees, like the rest of us, want to feel safe in their city. Maybe the county commissioners should take this into consideration when they put together ordinances that punish employers rather than doing something, anything, to curb the violence in Albuquerque.
For the hard-working people in our city and county, banning plastic and mandating overreaching sick leave isn’t the priority when they are afraid to come to work, and when crime is preventing the success of their employers by scaring away customers.
The city refuses to hire more police aides because it doesn’t want its employees to deal with offenders plagued by addiction, mental illness and violence, but it is perfectly happy making restaurant employees deal with them.
The county commission has an obligation and money to provide a behavioral health center to deal with this population, but instead commissioners make busy work passing yet another unfunded mandate on the businesses that are doing their best just to stay afloat.
Tell the Bernalillo County Commission it is out of touch and tell commissioners to vote “no” on sick leave and plastics, and start focusing on real problems plaguing our community!
