Should Paid Sick Days Be Mandatory?
Should Paid Sick Days Be Mandatory?
Through existing employer benefits many US workers have the option of calling in sick to work with no repercussions, including reprimand and loss of wage, but millions of other workers must make the decision to lose a day’s pay for staying home or go to work and expose others to illness. Unlike minimum wage, there are no legal mandates for employers to provide their workers with minimum paid time off for illness. However, this year several states, including Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, Vermont, and Pennsylvania, are considering passing bills that would mandate paid sick leave.
Those in favor of making paid sick days a labor standard feel it is a basic labor right and that workers should not have to jeopardize their pay check or their employment for missing a day’s work due to illness or injury. However, many business owners have a conflicting view, arguing that requiring paid sick time could put some companies out of business.
Proponents of such action from state legislation and those who supported the Healthy Families Act, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and introduced to Congress in May of 2005, believe that it is fair labor practice to grant employees paid sick days. Other positive factors supporting paid sick days include a potentially positive impact on health care costs as a result of preventative care and prevention of potential economic loss in the workplace by reducing the spread of germs to healthy co-workers.
Leaders in the business community provide opposition to mandated sick days because of the increased costs. Still others oppose the mandate because of the monumental task of enforcing a law that requires employers to keep extensive records of sick leave and the broad verbiage of current bills opens up new avenues for employees to sue employers for unfair labor practices.
Currently, the majority of the bills being considered make paid sick leave a required benefit for employees of companies employing a minimum number of workers. In Ohio, for example, employers with more than 25 employees would be required to provide seven days of paid sick leave to full-time workers and would have to calculate a pro-rated number of days for those working part time.
According to the grassroots organization Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), only 48% of American companies provide sick leave benefits, an issue ACORN feels stiffs workers and jeopardizes public health. This may be an accurate statement, especially considering workers with no paid sick leave may avoid keeping a sick child home from school to avoid losing a day’s pay. If one sick child with a cold or the flu could infect numerous other students and teachers, it may stand to reason that public health is in jeopardy along with education.
This year, as lawmakers in 11 states examine bills mandating sick leave, proponents say that if state legislators fail to act, they will take the cause to the public via issues on November ballots. California, Montana and Rhode Island already plan to have paid sick days enforced beginning in 2009.
Jennifer Beam is a featured writer for Xomba.com. Read the rest of her work here .
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Well, there's just one
Well, there's just one problem with these states and their new legislation: It's not the government's duty to tell private business owners what to do with their business. For all of the people who work for a company that does not have paid sick leave, they knew that going into the job. If they want a job with paid sick days, they can go somewhere else.
This is the problem we have with government today, and the business owners are exactly right when they say it will affect their costs. And you know what happens when their costs increase? They pass it off onto consumers. Why should they be forced to pay people for not working, then have to raise their prices to negatively impact consumers? Why does the government feel that this is an acceptable practice? Because of the "public health"? Nonsense. And if you notice that it is geared toward businesses with a certain amount of employees, what does that tell you? Why are they targeting only bigger companies? If it's a matter of "publc health," why don't they mandate that everyone pay their employees for sick days?
People need to wake up and realize what they're allowing their government to do - to the detriment of their own well-being.
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but isn't the nanny government going to take care of us anyway?
the politicians pushing bills like this are doing nothing more than playing on emotions in order to stay in office. every benefit an employer provides costs money. few employees do the math to see how much their actual salary is (pay + benefits + retirement + sick days + vacation days + taxes the employer pays above what you are paying). each benefit has to be paid for and that cost will always be paid by the customer.
Comment
It would be a nice idea to allow people a couple of sick days each year because most people can't help it if they get sick. Many people are good employees who are a great asset to their company and their paychecks shouldn't have to suffer if they have a short term illness.
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Amanda, that's a privilege
Amanda, that's a privilege to employees and entirely up to the employer. If the employer feels that his employees have earned paid sick leave, then he will give it to them. It's not up to the government to tell the employer that he needs to give it to them, or pay penalties. That is not capitalism and the government is infringing on the rights of that business owner. This is why we continue to lose businesses to foreign nations. The government would rather demand compliance for ridiculous policies (and lose jobs in the market as a consequence) than allow business owners and workers to make decisions for themselves.
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but freedom has been redefined to mean privilage
and a lot of people do not see that. until very recently i had not had sick days as an option during my working life. when i was sick i took the pay cut. but i also knew what it took to run a business and i knew when i took the job that that particular benefit was not available.
Being sick without starving as a result is a privellege?
Being able to be sick without worrying about how you'll eat or keep your home as a result is a privellege? That belief is real evidence of a sick society, if you ask me.
Capitalism needs to die.
Hear, hear!
Hear, hear!
You mean slave labor?
"This is why we continue to lose businesses to foreign nations."
You mean those nations that allow child slave labor? Yeah, that sounds like a great business model to adopt over here.
Capitalism is okay, it just needs to be reframed
There was a time when a working person was paid a working wage and received fair compensation for services rendered. The trouble is not with capitalism, but with the belief that the federal government needs to regulate every facet of it. Washington has twisted the meaning of the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution in every way possible to take power from private citizens and states to do business as they see fit.
Still, I find that creating a situation whereby sick and dis-eased workers feel obligated to be at work spreading germs and illness to other workers is unconscionable. Rather than say they should "find another job where they can be paid to be sick", I believe this situation is another reason for a person to be self-employed and/or work from home. A private individual working as an Internet writer or marketing affiliate has the flexibility to work as much or as little as he or she needs to bring in money while still retaining the ability to have sick time to recover from an illness. Plus, the freedom to dictate our thoughts and our lives is one of the few true remaining freedoms we have left.
We as a country have forgotten how to take care of ourselves.
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i agree
i think the best solution is to work for yourself. it isn't the easiest choice but in the long run it is the most rewarding.
re: first paragraph
i find that aspect frightening, especially with the events of the last couple of weeks. our finance industries are being nationalized as we speak. i'm shocked that we are allowing this.
If you miss two days of work
If you miss two days of work from an illness and you end up starving because of it, then I think having paid sick days is the least of your problems. Perhaps you should have made better choices in the past.
And please, take your communism somewhere else. It's a failed practice and it's time for people like you to go the same way you wish capitalism would. Your philosophy is fatally flawed, it has been proven so, and everything you claim that you want out of it ends up becoming the antithesis of the very things you preach. My suggestion to you: Try educating yourself before tackling subjects you can't comprehend.
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