Campaign For Healthy Denver Holds Protest At 16th Street Mall Starbucks For Paid Sick Leave Ballot Proposal

The Campaign for a Healthy Denver, advocates for paid sick leave in Denver, submitted a petition with over three times the amount of needed signatures to Denver's Election Division last week with hopes of qualifying for a ballot initiative for November.

Tuesday, those same paid sick leave supporters announced that they are holding a rally starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Starbucks on the 16th Street Mall. Peaceful demonstrators will be wearing infectious disease masks, passing out flyers and holding protest signs like "No Coughing in Our Coffee" and "No Viruses in Our Ventis" according to a press release from the group.

Campaign for a Healthy Denver is targeting Starbucks because the group alleges that Starbucks employees in Greece, Chile and China get paid sick days, however the equivalent Starbucks employees in Denver do not receive those benefits, Healthy Denver claims.

A representative from Starbucks did not immediately return a call requesting more information at the time of publication.

Campaign for a Healthy Denver, a coalition of more than 50 community organizations, labor groups, faith leaders, elected officials and more that are seeking a ballot initiative to protect public health by guaranteeing a basic standard of paid sick days for all employees in Denver workplaces of all sizes.

The Denver Post reports that the companies with fewer than 10 employees would have to offer five days of sick leave whereas larger employers would have to offer nine sick days.

Cities like San Francisco and Washington, D.C. have already enacted paid sick leave laws and Connecticut became the first state to adopt paid sick leave into law.