With the Democratic Congress, Groups Gear Up for Fight Over Paid Sick Days

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/washington/05labor.html

With the Democratic Congress expected to move quickly to raise the minimum wage, many Democrats, women’s organizations and liberal groups are gearing up for a fight on another workplace issue: paid sick days.

Supporters point to studies showing that nearly half of American workers do not receive paid sick days. But many Republicans and businesses complain that such legislation would impose another mandate on companies, driving up their costs.

Advocates of paid sick leave cite workers like Naomi Nakamura, who lost a week’s pay when her 103-degree fever forced her to miss five days from her job at a video rental store in San Francisco.

Ms. Nakamura said, “Some employees didn’t want to lose their pay, so they showed up for work even though they had strep throat, and they just spread it to other people.”

Last month, San Francisco voters approved a measure requiring all employers to provide paid sick days, making it the first jurisdiction in the nation with such a requirement. The vote was 61 percent to 39 percent.

Now supporters are planning a big push for sick day legislation not just in Congress, but in Maine, Maryland, Montana and several other states. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a bill last year to require companies with at least 15 employees to provide seven paid sick days a year, but that bill languished in the Republican-led Congress.

I don't get those benefits much less those who work for me.

What gains are there for those of us who work in the restaurant industry?

When I get the 'flu' or whatever it's called these days, I don't get paid for any day I don't work. It's the same in many other fields. You don't show up..... you don't get paid.

Is that what drives up the cost? The workers ultimetly pay since there is no 'sick leave' built into their job. The ultimate cost is workers who cannot stay home because of economic reasons and then infect their customers because their employers don't give a shit if they come to work sick.

in the red states where the minimum wage increase ballot measures won decisively. The rights of working people is definitely a winning issue.

paid sick days to employees. Show these businesses that it is less expensive to offer paid sick days, than to offer no paid sick days.

How many of us have gone to work and spread our germs because we couldn't afford to stay home and ended up causing everyone else in the place to get sick?

of a response to this. can't think of what but they pay big time lawyers to counter anything that workers get.

Yep, this has happened before.

People who work in the medical field should know this, but they act like they don't.

In fact, it happened at a Medical School with a Geriatrics branch at the local VA Hospital. Germladen-Boss micromanaged BF, coughed on him, he got sick, brought it home, I got sick, my kid got sick. All about two weeks apart.:banghead:

And Germladen-Boss was TOLD by his DOCTOR NOT to go to work.
Germladen-Boss has an Ed.D., but he got no sense. This was some virus from hell, and I usually don't get them. Everytime you coughed your throat was on fire.

I wonder if any of the patients in the VA got sick from this Typhoid Manny??

unless your company's understaffed anyway which is a management problem.