Businesses are concerned about the health of our employees. We are concerned when our employees have to walk by addicts with needles sticking out of their arms aggressively begging for spare change. We are concerned when violently aggressive mentally ill people approach our customers and our employees have to ask them to move on. We are concerned when hostile addicts park themselves in our restrooms for hours doing who knows what when our employees are the ones who have to clean up the mess.
So… YES we are concerned about our employees’ health. To imply otherwise is irresponsible and inaccurate. We are concerned when we have to repeatedly clean up needles and human waste on our property. We are concerned for their safety!
Where is the city and county while all of this is happening? Are they passing laws that make this behavior illegal? Are they insuring 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 in our businesses. 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 hardworking people in our city and county, banning plastic and imparting overreaching sick leave isn’t the priority when you are afraid to come to work, and when crime is preventing the success of your employer by scaring away customers.
The city refuses to hire more police aides because they don’t want their employees to deal with offenders plagued by addiction, mental illness, and violence, but they are perfectly happy making our employees deal with them.
The county commission has an obligation to and the money to provide a behavioral health center to deal with this population but instead they make busy work passing yet another unfunded mandate on the businesses that are doing their best just to stay afloat.
Tell the County Commission they are out of touch tell them to VOTE NO!