By Bruce Alpert
Times-Picayune, January 15, 2015
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama made the case for mandatory paid sick leave for most employees by recounting his luncheon conversation Thursday with three women, including the operator of a Baltimore, Md., coffee shop and a school nurse. The president met the women over lunch at Baltimore's Charmington's coffee shop and cafe, including Amanda Rothchild, co-owner and managing partner of Charmington's and Mary Stein, a mother of two and a school nurse.
Rothchild, the president said, provides her employees with paid sick leave, and pays them more than the minimum wage requires.
"And what Amanda has found -- and we've heard this from a lot of employers -- is, is that when they make that investment in their employees it pays dividends because the employees are more productive, there's lower turnover, there's greater productivity," Obama said. "And in fact, both large and small companies, it turns out, end up being more profitable over the long term, because, typically, any organization and certainly business is only going to be as good as its people." ...