If you didn’t hear about yesterday’s news conference by backers of Denver’s Initiative 300, which would mandate sick days for Denver workers, you weren’t alone, because it mostly flew under the radar of the local media.

As Fox 31 reported:

On Tuesday, supporters argued that [the opposition to paid sick days] is not a mom-and-pop opposition campaign, noting that more than $250,000 of the $645,270 raised is money coming from out of state.

“Many of the local restaurants that have contributed to the campaign against the paid sick days initiative are part of large, profitable national chains, including Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, Buffalo Wild Wings and Morton’s of Chicago,” states a press release from the Campaign for a Healthy Denver.

According to the Fox 31story, opponents called the funding information another “stunt:”

….”This is one more stunt from a group that has received 99.7 percent of their funding from a special interest group in Milwaukee to bring an initiative Denver small businesses uniformly say our economy can’t afford,” said George Merritt, the opposition’s spokesman. “Walk the local shops in LoDo, on Tennyson, South Pearl and East Colfax and they plead with you to vote “No” on initiative 300.”

Supporters of paid sick days say most of their resources come from local in-kind staff and volunteers, and the local chapter of 9to5, which is backing the initiative, raises money locally, but it’s funneled through the headquarters office in Milwaukee.

Coverage also appeared in the Denver Business Journal and The Denver Post.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Fox 31 Denver. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.