The advocacy group Earned Sick Time Chicago delivered a petition containing about 25,000 signatures to Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday that urges the mayor to support paid sick days for private-sector workers.

Aldermen Toni Foulkes (15^th) and Joe Moreno (1^st) introduced an ordinance to the City Council in March that would require employers in Chicago to provide workers with one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. Employees would be able to earn a maximum of between five and nine sick days per year, based on the size of their employer.

The ordinance, which has not yet been called for consideration in the Workforce Development Committee, states that 43 percent of the city’s private-sector workers receive no paid sick time.

“Everybody’s going to get sick at some point and need to stay home and take care of them self,” said Melissa Josephs, director of equal opportunity policy for Women Employed, which organized the Earned Sick Time Chicago group. “You don’t want them to come to work and infect the public. It’s in businesses’ best interest to provide some sick time.”

Josephs explained local organizing on the issue followed news that an employee at Whole Foods’ Boystown location was fired last winter after she missed work to stay home with her son when Chicago Public Schools’ canceled classes due to severe weather.

The incident led to a protest the following week outside of Whole Foods’ regional headquarters in River North, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Under the proposed paid-sick day ordinance, workers would not be limited to using their sick time when they are ill. Josephs said employees would also be able to use sick time to cover work absences taken to care for sick family members and in instances of “a public-health closing,” such as a school closure.

Carlos Romero, an organizer with the Restaurant Opportunity Center nonprofit, described at City Hall Thursday his personal experience with a lack of paid sick days while working in a Wicker Park deli.

“I had the flu and they told me if I didn’t come in for work that I would be fired. I had no choice but to go in to work and suck it up,” he said. “I ended up getting one of my coworkers sick, … it made me feel really bad. … We shouldn’t have to put people in those situations where they’re sacrificing their health and putting other people’s health in jeopardy.”

John Carpenter, vice president of external affairs for the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, stated the chamber’s opposition to the proposal on Thursday.

“While no employer would want an employee to come to work while ill, the fact of the matter is … the mandatory sick time proposed in this ordinance is really just additional days off with pay,” he said. “Whether it’s vacation, whether it’s sick time; it’s still time away from the job [with pay].”