If you’re like most Americans, the chances are in your favor that you’ve gone to work sick. Often times that’s because your employer either doesn’t provide paid sick days (and you need the money), or if you call out you are required to find coverage (and no one wants to work your shift), or you’re afraid to lose your job. With the job market as rough as it is and a slumping economy, jobs — even low paying ones — are hard to come by. People who are living pay check to pay check can’t afford to take a day off, no matter how sick they or a family member may be. And of course, if you’re working a job that doesn’t offer paid sick days, they probably also don’t offer health insurance. So what is a worker to do if they or their loved ones get sick?
There are 145 countries that promise workers some version of paid sick leave, and the United States is not one of them. We do have the Family and Medical Leave Act which allows eligible employees to take up to 12 workweeks of leave per year, but that is unpaid time off. Further, it only covers pregnancy and serious illness (those that involve “either an overnight stay in a medical care facility, or continuing treatment by a health care provider for a condition that either prevents the employee from performing the functions of the employee’s job, or prevents the qualified family member from participating in school or other daily activities”), and only those who have worked at 24 hours per week for the same employee for at least a year are covered, and only if the employer has at least 50 total employees within 75 miles. In other words: it is hardly comprehensive.
Those least likely to receive paid medical leave? According to United States Department of Labor in March of 2009, those working in the service, natural resources, construction, and maintenance industries were the least likely to be offered paid sick days by their employers. These workers are also likely to be working part-time, their wages range in the lowest 25 percent, and many of those jobs consistently rank among the most dangerous. That is to say, those who need paid sick time the most are those who receive it the least.
When people go to work sick they are not only less productive (who works to their best potential when they feel like crap?), but it will take longer for them to get better, and they risk infecting other employees and customers. There is no reason anyone should have to put work above their (or their child’s) health.
Research has shown that employees would actually save money by allowing sick workers paid time off to get better, or by paying for health insurance that would lead to better preventative care. According to a 2004 study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, “presenteeism” (the practice of going to work sick rather than taking a day off), could account for a loss in productivity “as high as 60 percent of the total cost to the company of worker illness, eclipsing the costs of absenteeism and medical and disability benefit.”
In May 2009 Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) sponsored the Healthy Families Act of 2009. If passed, the bill would require “employers with 15 or more employees to provide seven days of paid sick leave a year to employees who work at least 20 hours a week. Employees would be able to use the sick leave to care for a sick relative or a newborn child and for needs related to domestic abuse (such as court appearances and counseling), as well as for personal illness.”
Since there are at least 40 million people living in the U.S. without healthcare and the changes associated with Obama’s health care plan will only be going into effect slowly over the next eight years, there is a great need for workers to have paid sick time. The Healthy Families Act of 2009, also known as H.R. 2460, is still stuck in committee, so make sure to email your Representative and Senators or sign this petition and tell Congress that sick leave needs to be guaranteed for all workers.
