In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Lack of paid sick days hurts us all

Jill

Over the summer one of our guest bloggers — now I’m blanking on who, and of course I can’t get to Feministe Major — wrote about the lack of paid sick days at her workplace. She made the point that the lack of paid sick days is bad for all employees, because people who have to work when they’re sick end up getting other people sick. The issue is finally getting some attention now that H1N1 is upon us. And it’s interesting to hear business interests justify the lack of paid sick days:

Many worker groups and women’s groups have seized on the H1N1 pandemic to argue that Congress should enact legislation guaranteeing paid sick days. San Francisco and Washington have enacted such legislation, but similar measures face obstacles in Congress.

“Sometimes you talk about legislation in the abstract, but this is making people begin to understand the problem,” said Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut and lead sponsor in the House of a bill, with more than 100 co-sponsors, that would require employers with 15 or more workers to provide seven paid sick days a year.

Business groups oppose such legislation, calling it expensive and unnecessary. They say that employers already allow and even encourage sick employees to stay home.

“The vast majority of employers provide paid leave of some sort,” said Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor at the United States Chamber of Commerce. “The problem is not nearly as great as some people say. Lots of employers work these things out on an ad hoc basis with their employees.”

So, you know, employers work it out with employees on their own. Nothing to see here. And apparently the term “vast majority” is up for redefinition:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 39 percent of private-sector workers do not receive paid sick leave.

Predictably, WalMart is an illustrative example of everything wrong with the country:

Workers at many retailers and restaurants say their employers’ policies discourage them from calling in sick. At Wal-Mart, when employees miss one or more days because of illness or other reasons, they generally get a demerit point. Once employees obtain four points over a six-month period, they begin receiving warnings that can lead to dismissal.

In addition, when Wal-Mart employees call in sick, their first day off is not a paid sick day (although workers can use a vacation day or personal day), but the second and third days are paid. The policy is meant to keep workers who are not actually sick from taking a day off to, say, go fishing.

…wow.

Clearly, this is one area where the private sector needs to be checked to make sure that their policies are at least humane. It’s a shame that it takes a “pandemic” scare to get people to think about it.

64 thoughts on Lack of paid sick days hurts us all

  1. So . . . if “the vast majority” provide sick leave already, why are they bothering to take issue with the legislation? If they’re already doing it, it shouldn’t affect them, should it?

    (And for some reason I’m suspicious that a lot of those who say they provide sick leave to their employees do not do so or skimp on it for the lower-wage positions.)

  2. I would think a more efficient system would be to have a set number of paid days off that can be used for anything – sick days, vacation etc. That way the employer wouldn’t have a large cost for monitoring whether the employee was actually sick or not.

    In professional settings, I actually prefer an ad hoc system. Otherwise, it feels more like accounting. Of course, most work settings are not set up this way, but if available, I would rather have flexibility than a right to a set number of days.

    I think 2 things are important here. First, any system of time off will not address those people on incentive based compensation systems. Bonuses tied to billable hours or work generated, as well as commission or tip related income, makes the issue more difficult. This includes a rather large group of employees from brokers to lawyers to salesmen. Second, people should understand that time off will be part of an overall compensation package and more paid leave can mean less take home income.

  3. The Walmart situation is a damned sight worse than you think.

    Walmart currently recognizes ONLY bereavement days as excused time off. All other absences, including sick days and trips to the ER with your kids, are considered unexcused absences. If you rack up more than three unexcused absences in a rolling six month period, you will be written up. Another one? Written up again. Another? You’re fired.

    For parents, it is crucial to save those days for their sick kids, not themselves.

    What this means is that the vast majority of Walmart workers, if ambulatory, will go to work sick, no matter how sick they are.

    High fever? Dizzy? Chills? Cough? Vomiting? You work. It’s better than getting fired.

  4. It’s not that hard to have legislated sick leave. In NZ you have 5 days sick leave annually (and 20 annual leave); some employers offer more. It acrues over the course of the year (actually I think that’s up to the company but I’m not sure – every employer I’ve had has had it acrue) and all accounting systems have a section for it.

    Of course, we have all sorts of leave – parental leave (separate to maternity leave for during pregnancy and applies to either parent), bereavement leave, special leave… no idea if that applies anywhere/everywhere in the US.

    Legally the employer is entitled to ask for a dr’s certificate if you have three days off consecutively, otherwise they just have to believe you.

  5. On a related note, many of the issues in health care reform affect women disproportionately, even if it’s not highlighted. Without paid sick leave, it’s often a woman who can’t afford to stay home to take care of a sick child who will go to school and get others sick.

    The folks at Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need have a great fact sheet about what women need in health care compared to what we are getting with the Senate/House bills merging.

    http://www.raisingwomensvoices.net/storage/blog-graphics/How%20women%20fare%20in%20health%20reform%20LONG2%2010.30.09.pdf

  6. I don’t get paid sick leave, and I’m perfectly satisfied with it. My company provides extra paid vacation days, which we can use to be sick, or not. I’d prefer those not be legislated away.

  7. I feel pretty confident that if the feds or the state government were to force my employer to provide X number of paid sick days, we would pretty quickly lose Y paid vacation days, where X=Y.

    And of course, I realize it isn’t *all* about me. I’m merely providing an example of one of those 39% of private employers that have a perfectly good reason not to give paid vacation days, and will be trod upon by the proposed legislation.

  8. This would be wonderful in my opinion. I work two jobs, but because I don’t work full time at either of them I don’t get any paid sick days.

    So, there have been times when I have woken up sick and contemplated, “Would I rather stay home and rest or would I rather loose a whole day of pay?” Usually I stay home, but boy, does it make a huge ding in my paycheck. This year I’ve probably lost about $300 just for being ill, and I’d only be half way through the seven paid sick days too.

  9. Again, Tom, it’s not all about you.

    Or maybe some of it is.

    Would you like to shop at businesses where the staff isn’t swimming with disease? Would you prefer your public areas to NOT be petri dishes of infectious illnesses? Would you like to pay higher taxes to support higher unemployment after people get fired for taking their kids to the ER with a broken leg?

    In that case, maybe paid sick leave isn’t such a bad idea.

  10. My husband is a manager at Friendly’s- a very busy, family friendly restaurant. He works in the back, so he’s around the food, people who are cooking, etc… and he’s gone to work throwing up because he has to save the limited amount of sick time he has- 2.5 days a year- for when the kids are sick and because he gets in trouble if he actually uses his sick time. It’s ridiculous. The man works 50-55 hours a week and has never even once called in just because he felt like it. My mom and I have discussed calling the health department, but I don’t want him to get in trouble. I can’t imagine it’s good for all the people who are there to be exposed to people who are throwing up, have the flu, etc… My job is at the opposite end of the spectrum… I can take time off whenever I want, but I don’t get paid for it at all. So today I had to weigh the benefits of going to work with bronchitis and exposing the kids I work with to it or staying home and not getting paid. I’m home because I don’t think it’s right to expose people to illnesses when you can prevent it, but if I weren’t working extra the rest of the week, or if I were a single mother who had no other source of income, or my husband had a less secure job, I would have been there.

  12. Would you like to shop at businesses where the staff isn’t swimming with disease? Would you prefer your public areas to NOT be petri dishes of infectious illnesses?

    I prefer to, yes, and lo and behold, even in the absence of federal intrusion, there are a dozen establishments on the block that I work that don’t seem to be festering pits of disease.

    This whole argument reeks of classism — “we need to make sure the people serving our food are disease-free!”

  13. Tom, what’s wrong with federal intrusion? Federal intrusion gave me my livelihood. Without federal intrusion, it would still be perfectly legal for the construction industry to bar women from participating in apprenticeship programs.

    Market theory says that folks won’t allow bigotry to affect their bottom line. A quick look at the real world says that isn’t so—people are quite willing to place a premium on their bigotry. They willingly pay to keep others on a lower rung of the ladder. They think that is money well spent. Go figure.

    Most employers are not going to enact paid sick days without a federal requirement to do so, in the same way that most employers didn’t give a shit about workplace safety until those pesky federal workers comp and OSHA came along. Employers, by and large, don’t give a rat’s ass about workers. Even skilled ones.

    The classist argument is the one that says “you as an individual should bargain with your employer for workplace benefits, and employers as individuals can choose whether or not to bargain with you.” That, for all practical intents and purposes, places all the power in the hands of the employer. Let’s see now….who is of the more privileged class….hmmm…..

    In the meantime, unless we get a little help in the form of “federal intrusion”, we can count on some serious disruption in our lives from pandemic flu from all the workers who are coming in to work sick, and/or sending their kids to school sick because in the absence of “federal intrusion”, we have no alternative.

    *cough*

  14. No alternative?

    I’d argue there is one outside of federal intrusion that I would love to see work, partially because I haven’t had the chance to see it in action. And it works – but the question is what conditions need to exist for it to work:

    Unionization. My knowledge of service workers’ unions is limited, but I’m relatively sure they exist – if sparsely. The fact is that even with the demands of a union worker (re: things like sick days), it’s likely that it would be cheaper to have long-term happy employees than to have to re-hire every few months. My best guess is that a lot of the jobs that are most suspect re: sick days have a high employee turnover and it’s meant to keep people like me who would work at one of these stores while I finish up my degree from frivolously calling out than for someone who earns their living for an extended period of time from one of these places.

    But what about that as an alternative?

  15. PrettyAmiable, I am a union worker, and we don’t have paid sick days in construction. Most of us don’t have paid holidays or paid vacation either. Paid sick days are brought up every time contract negotiations roll around, but contractors balk, even though it would benefit them (one worker bringing in the flu spreads it around the jobsite; if that same worker stayed home for three days there’d be less absenteeism in the workforce as a whole). Remember, with us it’s not just lost pay—it’s lost “bank hours” in our insurance system as well (we have to work 140 hours per month to have health insurance).

    Negotiation has its place, but so does legislation. Legislation brings greater benefits to a greater number of people, faster. No sense in throwing that important tool out of the toolbox. Imagine where women would be if we had to form women’s unions to negotiate our right to education….now think about Title IX. Much better, huh?

  16. I actually disagree, as a fiscal conservative.

    Market prices are driven by demand and supply, and that includes the market price for wage and benefits for any given worker. It’s why we pay actors and professional sports players and CEOs as much as we do – because of the high demand for the product and the comparatively low numbers of individuals that perform at their respective echelons.

    If the government intervenes and says that companies are required to pay for sick leave, the market will correct itself and compensate for this increase in sick leave with a decrease in wage to compensate – except in the case where the individuals are only getting paid minimum wage – but theoretically, raises typically given for time worked within an organization aren’t guaranteed and would most likely be suspended until the market price for compensation corrects.

    The government can’t increase minimum wage and sick pay because it’ll drive up the comparative prices of the goods produced. This won’t be an issue in high margin industries (which are typically luxury goods anyway), but in low margin industries, it would make a difference (think things like US Steel and to some degree healthcare – though that’s more difficult once you factor in insurance and such). Increased prices in commodities essentially mean that inflation goes up, etc, etc which isn’t in itself a bad thing, but with the economy just coming out of a recession and the need to employ more people, it’s not exactly what we need. (This said, keep in mind that I’m speaking as a graduate student who went back simply because my field wasn’t hiring and the awareness that the same thing happened for a lot of my classmates. The unemployment rate only factors in people actively looking for jobs, so as far as I’m concerned, real unemployment is much higher than whatever 10% ish statistic is being thrown around).

    I like the idea of unions stepping in because, for their members, they can demand paid sick days without losing wages or raises. It’s a more natural way for the economy to adjust supply and would almost discourage transitive workers like me from entering the industry at all.

    And fact of the matter is if there are enough people that want to demand this change from government, there are enough people that should be able to unionize and bring this change themselves. Service workers just need a rallying point of contact.

  17. And fact of the matter is if there are enough people that want to demand this change from government, there are enough people that should be able to unionize and bring this change themselves.

    As opposed to….organizing as voters and bringing this change themselves? Y’know, the more effective way? For a large number of marginalized workers, rather than a relative few?

    Representative government—not just a theory.

  18. Increased cost of a basic market basket of goods increases inflation – that’s just what inflation, by definition, is. If the cost of creating goods in that market basket (whatever happens to be in CPI which is usually used as an indicator) increases significantly such that producers can only turn any kind of a profit by increasing prices, by definition inflation goes up. That’s not to say other things don’t have an effect, but increasing cost of labor, assuming a corresponding increase in price, would increase inflation. Inflation is a fact of life – it happens all the time. Is it something we want when people can’t afford to feed themselves now? No. Also, I don’t know that saying other countries do this is a good enough comparison. Those countries do a lot of things differently than we do and it might be that mix that makes it work. Changing this one thing without changing something else to match their structure might not have the intended effect.

    Incidentally, minimum wages produce basic market inefficiencies in themselves which are partially the cause for unemployment. It’s basic micro.

    There’s also a difference in Title IX than what you’re talking about here. Title IX was correcting laws that allowed discrimination. This isn’t discrimination. The government has the responsibility to correct social inefficiencies – not economic inefficiencies.

  19. And incidentally, as someone who doesn’t have a job, I DON’T want inflation to increase and as far as my business education is concerned, I don’t want a mass policy to go into effect that’s going to decrease my chances of having a job in a year and a half. Someone’s got to represent me too.

  20. The government has the responsibility to correct social inefficiencies – not economic inefficiencies.

    “Economic inefficiencies” was the argument used against workers comp and OSHA, also. It was “inefficient” and “too expensive” to value the lives of workers.

    Regardless, one of the duties we (as participants in our own governance) task our government with is protecting the public health. Paid sick days go a long way toward doing that in the face of pandemic, especially during a shitty economy. Here in Illinois, a lot of school districts have shut down for a time to prevent the spread of flu. Know what that means? A lot of parents (mostly women) staying home, missing pay, putting their job on the line because they haven’t figured out a way to break the laws of physics and be in two places at once.

    Your solution isn’t a solution. It’s the status quo. And it isn’t working. In pretty much the same way that “study hard and get good grades” didn’t help my grandmother’s generation get into college.

    This is a power equation we’re talking about here. Even unionized workers don’t wield the power that employers do. As voters, we wield more power. Why should we cede that power to our own detriment?

  21. I don’t want a mass policy to go into effect that’s going to decrease my chances of having a job in a year and a half.

    Funny, that’s what a bunch of white men said about the Civil Rights Act….oh wait, they’re still saying it.

  22. “I feel pretty confident that if the feds or the state government were to force my employer to provide X number of paid sick days, we would pretty quickly lose Y paid vacation days, where X=Y.”

    If X=Y, that would mean that if the government required a minimum of 40 paid sick days, you would lose 40 paid sick days, regardless of how many paid vacation days you already receive. I think you meant where Y=N-X, N being the number of paid vacation days you currently receive. Of course, if N=0 and X=40, then you’d “lose” -40 paid vacation days. Classism, indeed.

  23. Why should currently unemployed people continue suffering because people who have jobs want the extra $200 they’ll lose in a day’s wage? Your solution works for one group of people to the detriment of another. It would be different if our economy wasn’t struggling at the end of another recession to get back on its feet and I might agree, but that’s not the case today. My solution says that if people want this, then they need to fight it in ways where they can demand this privilege because otherwise they’ll be facing off with yet another group of people who are suffering because of the state of our economy.

    And I’ve got to tell you, this swine flu paranoia is a separate issue because it affects two separate groups of people. These schools shouldn’t be closing. There’s no proof that the death rate for the swine flu is different than any other flu. The people that are dying and are constantly in the media typically had weakened immune systems and are the same people who would have died if they had gotten the standard (“”) flu. Those parents need to educate themselves about H1N1 and demand that their schools do their jobs. And for those that have kids with congenital heart defects/whatever makes them more susceptible to death, they need to keep their kids out of school as they see fit. It sucks to be a parent whose kid is actually sick. The other parents should be demanding that their schools stay open.

  24. It’s not currently a market inefficiency issue because this policy doesn’t exist. Minimum wage in itself causes market inefficiencies. Every increase in minimum wage (or sum compensation) increases market inefficiencies. I’m not going to argue this anymore because it really is basic micro, but can point you to a solid textbook that discusses minimum wage specifically (I just pulled out Microeconomics, 7th ed. Pindyck and Rubenfield, page 321 according to the index). It affects other people. You’re looking at it from a fairness perspective, but only to one group of people and not to the larger system.

  25. PrettyAmiable: Why should currently unemployed people continue suffering because people who have jobs want the extra $200 they’ll lose in a day’s wage? Your solution works for one group of people to the detriment of another.

    Because communicable disease can kill.

    I think the swine flu thing is ridiculously paranoid, too, but for asthmatics, infants, the elderly and the immunocompromised, influenza of any kind can kill. Why is making it slightly easier for you to get a job worth killing people?

    It is, in fact, the people who do jobs we consider “menial”, who don’t get a lot of respect, and who often do not get sick days and cannot afford unpaid time off, who handle food for *everyone*. TomFoolery said he thought this point was classist; I don’t see how. We treat the people who handle our food like dirt because we consider them a lower class who don’t deserve the privileges that higher-paid, better-educated people get… but disease doesn’t care. Disease doesn’t care if you’re legally in this country or not; if I raise a fuss about the Mexican cleaning people working in my building getting health care, I run the risk of getting disease because if they don’t get health care, they get sick and can transmit germs by cleaning my office. Disease doesn’t care if you’re rich; you have better resources to fight it if you’re rich, but Jim Henson died of pneumonia in his 50’s.

    It is important to give everyone sick time because the people who don’t already *have* it are the people most likely to be handling food or cleaning offices; those of us who don’t do jobs where we have the potential to transmit disease to a lot of other people probably already have paid sick time. And disease can kill. And it’s the government’s job to prevent “tragedy of the commons”, where everyone doing the rational thing for themselves causes a negative outcome to everyone; it may be rational for employers to avoid giving paid sick time to low-paid workers, it is definitely rational for employees with no paid sick time to go to work, but that way lies pandemics. Preventing that kind of thing is *exactly* the job we pay the government to do.

  26. My solution says that if people want this, then they need to fight it in ways where they can demand this privilege

    Hold the phone. That’s where we’re disagreeing. You call it “privilege”, I call it the basic common sense of a modern urban economy. Paid sick days aren’t a perk for lazy workers. It’s literally a way to keep contagious disease at bay in an modern economy where population is dense and modern means of transportation spread germs to more people, faster than ever before. Why you are opposed to “governmental” means is beyond me; people organizing as voters, petitioning their representatives to get legislation passed is the way we roll here via the Constitution. That is one of our ways. I’ll be damned if I give that up.

    Also, those parents are not ignorant. They have no choice. When the school shuts down, the school shuts down. This flu is somewhat different in that children (not just infants) are more susceptible to catching it and getting complications. Otherwise healthy children have died from H1N1. Not many, but more than the standard flu. The schools aren’t shutting down because they “aren’t doing their jobs”; they’re shutting down because if they don’t, parents of sick children will be sending their kids to school in order to keep their jobs. Which, of course, spreads the flu.

    The lack of paid sick leave constitutes a glaring weakness in U.S. public health policy. Maybe folks would take this all a little more seriously if we renamed H1N1 a “terrorist”.

    Here’s a news flash—the U.S. workforce isn’t down on the farm anymore. We aren’t living or working in small, isolated communities. Our economy isn’t structured in a way where the quarantines of the late 18- early 1900s are likely to work. Hell, we still structure our school system on the needs of that era—not ours.

  27. >> “Otherwise healthy children have died from H1N1. Not many, but more than the standard flu”

    Cite this, please? I haven’t seen anything to indicate that the percentages are statistically different. And I’m saying these people need to educate themselves and demand that these schools stay open. My school had regular flu outbreaks when I was growing up and we never shut down. This virus hasn’t mutated yet into the crazy virus they’re expecting it to be, and until that happens, they shouldn’t be shutting down.

    Then fine. What you’re saying is that you value keeping people at home and having them paid to do so more than you value a decrease in unemployment. That’s a basic value difference, and I can’t argue that. What I can say definitively is that I’d much rather one person lose $200 than to keep someone from $20,000 (at least) a year because individuals don’t value their (and others’) health more than $200 a day. But until you come up with a way where you can get paid sick days without condemning another group of people, I’m never going to support this policy. The economics are not behind it. And I have a vote too. and so does every person who is unemployed (…with citizenship).

  28. What you’re saying is that you value keeping people at home and having them paid to do so more than you value a decrease in unemployment.

    There is no proof that unemployment will increase with a policy of paid sick leave. If you still need x number of people to get the job done, that’s how many it takes—I’ve yet to see an employer hire more people than are necessary to do a job. In fact, having paid sick leave can increase employment, as replacement workers are needed for those who are at home, sick. And hey…cutting CEO pay could make room for a whole helluva lot more workers, no?

    because individuals don’t value their (and others’) health more than $200 a day.

    That’s not the equation being worked here. It’s “do I value having a job, or do I risk losing my job by taking a sick day?” Because employers can and do lay off or fire people for taking unpaid sick days. Without a legislative mandate to require paid sick days, people are going to go to work sick, and they are going to send their children to school sick. Period. Mandating sick leave is the only way to keep workers from losing their jobs because they had the temerity to “value their (and other’s) health” by taking a sick day. The simplest solution is to handle it via the unemployment system—each worker gets x number of paid sick days, and files for the payment via unemployment.

    you know, those “people who’d die anyway

    Yeah, my mother is one of those people. And right now, she’s got the flu. Probably caught it from one of those people who can’t take a day off without getting penalized for it.

  29. I’d like to reiterate that I’m not going to teach you economics. Refer to a textbook. What you’re saying is wrong, all else equal. Sure, there are a couple of jobs that require a certain number of people, but Wal-Mart? If they need to pay more, they’ll cut people from the floor. Fast food places will cut people from the line. The vast majority of firms do not work at bare minimum. Again, refer to an economics book because you’re just wrong.

    I still think labor unions should be working to demand this time in industries that need it, and if yours isn’t doing it’s job in representing the working members, then I hope someone steps up in leadership.

    >>Yeah, my mother is one of those people. And right now, she’s got the flu. Probably caught it from one of those people who can’t take a day off without getting penalized for it.

    Really? She stays in and has no contact with anyone except for her trips to Wal-Mart and other places that don’t offer paid leave? She doesn’t use public transportation, have friends with kids, have kids that use public transportation or have social lives? Odds are she caught it elsewhere. I have a comment awaiting moderation, but part of it says this: “If you can prove that there’s a statistically significant difference in the likelihood of getting sick after visiting a Wal-Mart versus some other department store that doesn’t have this policy (that’s controlled for in terms of relative traffic – or, if this is too hard since Wal-Mart is sort of a business anomaly, then two otherwise like fast food places that differ primarily in this policy), I would respect that argument because then, yeah, I’m putting a value on your life.” But fact of the matter is that without this, that argument just doesn’t hold. People get sick and sometimes people die. Changing a policy because it sounds like it might affect sick rates is stupid if you don’t know that the policy in place now actually affects sick rates.

    Regarding taking a sick day and the fear of losing your job – could you sue for wrongful termination? My mother works in a hospital cleaning and doesn’t get sick leave (and she works IN A HOSPITAL), but you can bet that if she were to take a day off during the week and got fired over it, we would sue in a heartbeat.

  30. These schools shouldn’t be closing. There’s no proof that the death rate for the swine flu is different than any other flu. The people that are dying and are constantly in the media typically had weakened immune systems and are the same people who would have died if they had gotten the standard (“”) flu.

    Schools (which are incubators of a variety of illnesses in the best of circumstances) shouldn’t close when a significant portion of their student body is spiking fevers in excess of 103 degrees? Your comments seem to suggest that you’re preoccupied with the operation of markets to the exclusion of public health and epidemiology.

    Regardless of whether or not schools close, though, parents still have to stay home with kids who are sick, which brings us right back to the original problem: lack of paid sick days and job security in a situation which is staggeringly normal.

  31. Pretty Amiable:

    “Why should currently unemployed people continue suffering because people who have jobs want the extra $200 they’ll lose in a day’s wage? ”

    $200 for a day’s wage? Are you under the impression that the average blue collar worker in an industry that treats employees like kleenex is making $25 an hour? I think you might be slightly out of touch, here. Try sixty or seventy bucks. Also, try to understand that for some people, sixty or seventy bucks is the difference between being able to afford to pay bills or make rent or buy medication or, you know, NOT.

    $70 is not a trivial amount when you work retail. Have you ever watched one of your coworkers try to decide if they should buy lunch or diapers? Did you know how many of my coworkers have chosen diapers and then been too proud to borrow a dollar for ramen and have worked the rest of their shift hungry? Do you know what $70 would have meant to them?

    Also, why should we ADD to the rolls of the unemployed and SUBTRACT from the number of people paying into unemployment?

    If we penalize qualified people who WANT to work for getting sick, that’s what we’re doing. Adding to the general idiocy of this policy, if we decide that we don’t care, that sick people don’t deserve the gold plated privelege of being a minimum wage worker, who is going to pay their medical bills when they’re jobless and still sick, and no longer have health insurance?

    YOU are, because YOU still have a job.

    Way to go.

    Also, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but healthy people are still subject to the laws of basic biology and contagion. No matter how rich or educated or healthy or overall WICKED COOL you think you are, you can still catch disease from The Filthy Masses.

    You might want to keep that in mind the next time you get on a good Scrooge “…die and decrease the surplus population” tear.

  32. Well, one of the premises of the entire argument is that you’re more likely to get sick after visiting one of these places, and that isn’t supported with any kind of statistics either. I don’t want people to die and I never insinuated such (..again, sick kids need to stay at home and it’s up to the parents if they want to keep their kids away from these public places f they’re particularly susceptible), but I’m not willing to make poor economic choices because of a perceived public health threat that hasn’t been supported with any data. If you can prove that there’s a statistically significant difference in the likelihood of getting sick after visiting a Wal-Mart versus some other department store that doesn’t have this policy (that’s controlled for in terms of relative traffic – or, if this is too hard since Wal-Mart is sort of a business anomaly, then two otherwise like fast food places that differ primarily in this policy), I would respect that argument because then, yeah, I’m putting a value on your life.

    I also think there’s a difference in your particular industry if you’re worried about your coworkers passing flus and such on to you. I imagine the sex industry would make less if everyone wore face masks, but that’s not true in fast food or in department stores. But frequent hand washing, avoiding touching the gooey parts of your face, and controlling what you breathe on can prevent most of the health concerns in the majority of industries affected by this policy0 (..again, for the purposes of the sex industry, those aren’t feasible and I would prefer that that be regulated. In the sex industry.)

  33. Really? She stays in and has no contact with anyone except for her trips to Wal-Mart and other places that don’t offer paid leave? She doesn’t use public transportation, have friends with kids, have kids that use public transportation or have social lives? Odds are she caught it elsewhere.

    Nope. My mother is retired and lives in a dying Rust Belt city, the kind of city that doesn’t have (m)any good paying jobs anymore. The factories have all but closed down, replaced by low-wage, no-benefit “service industry” jobs—the kind of jobs where the workers are treated like children and are put in permanent “time-out” if they take say, more than three sick days. No, she doesn’t use public transportation (which is either nonexistent or a very limited-access joke in most of the midwest), she’s retired, all her friends are retired. She doesn’t have much of a “social life” because her terminal cancer gets in the way. Frankly, her outings consist of (a)going to the grocery store, which in her city she has a whole whopping two to choose from, both nonunion with unpaid sick leave (and Maude help you if you’re a worker who takes any), (b)going to the laundromat (gee, who goes to the laundromat in dying rustbelt cities? poor people without sick leave, that’s who), (c)going to the pharmacy for more pain pills (again, nonunion, lots of sick and coughing workers), (d)going to the gas station to fill the tank or buy lotto tickets, and sneak a cigarette ‘cuz she thinks my dad doesn’t know she’s returned to smoking. Oh, and sometimes they pack up and drive over here for the weekend, where they can be exposed to any germs my daughter and I pick up, because in this economy, if I can still move, literally move, you bet your ass I’m doing everything when I’m sick.

    Welcome what your precious “economy” looks like from the working class rustbelt perspective. Welcome to what the world looks like from no safety net. There isn’t “the economy”. There’s the economy from the top and the economy from the bottom. I’m closer to the bottom, and I refuse to act against my own interests, economic or otherwise, no matter how often I’m lectured.

    Whether you realize it or not, you are acting against your own interest by rejecting a policy of mandated sick leave, if indeed you are an unemployed worker.

    Changing a policy because it sounds like it might affect sick rates is stupid if you don’t know that the policy in place now actually affects sick rates.

    If prima facie evidence isn’t good enough for you, you can always check out this on the Healthy Families Act. The status quo does affect sick rates—about half of U.S. workers have no paid sick leave. It’s higher in service-industry jobs where workers come into contact with a hell of a lot of the public—like 85% of food service industry workers. There is substantial evidence that mandated paid sick leave would have a positive public health impact.

  34. Oh, and it’s probably also worth a mention that the flu is specifically excluded from Family and Medical Leave, which further penalizes workers.

  35. And before I get to work….I’d like to thank Sara in the comments above for her link. I was beginning to think I was the only person on the left-hand side of the blogosphere that has a problem with the current incarnation of the health-care legislation! Ten effing grand in out of pocket expenses is supposed to prevent medical bankruptcy? On whose effing planet? My so-called “cadillac plan” of insurance has a three grand out of pocket maximum for families (including single parent families–$1500 individual, $3000 family of two or more). Of course, that doesn’t take into account the odious practice of “usual and customary”—which means if the only neonatology practice in the city charges more than “usual and customary” not only is that not paid, but it doesn’t count against your OOP maximum…..ahh, don’t get me started. It’s just crystal-clear to me that the current bill still leaves a big swath of the working class out in the cold. The Illinois All-Kids program is much better in that regard; takes into account actual cost of living. The federal poverty guidelines are based on the cost of food, not on the cost of housing, transportation, childcare, utilities, and other essentials.

  36. God. Once again, I have to say it: every time I see comments like Pretty Amiable’s*, and hear the horror stories of American commenters, I thank god that I live in the EU. Yeah, it’s the UK, which is way too infected with US ideas, which means that we can’t be complacent about the rights we currently have, but at least most people still see the sense of not having disease-ridden workers spreading their germs to everyone else. At my last job, anyone with Swine Flu had mandatory 2 weeks off, and it didn’t even count towards your sick leave total.

    *that name was obviously chosen for comedic effect, no?

  37. >>If we penalize qualified people who WANT to work for getting sick, that’s what we’re doing.

    What you’re doing is penalizing people who don’t have jobs and won’t get them because you’re creating economic conditions that won’t let them get jobs. And I have a job? What part of I’m in graduate school because I couldn’t get a job was unclear?

    Incidentally, the laundromat? If she picked it up there, chances are it’s not from one of the employees there. The pharmacy? Who else is at the pharmacy? Oh right, sick people. You can’t skew this without any real statistics, so stop now.

    And I’m sorry, the economy from the top? Is that where everyone in an unemployment line is sitting? Way at the top? You’re enacting a policy that furthers the suffering of one group of people just so someone else can save $60, $70.

    If you’re mad about working conditions, then get the people who work in public service to wear face masks. If they don’t like not having paid sick days, then they can leave the industry. Apparently you’re under the impression that unemployment isn’t a problem now.

    And no, I don’t think we should suddenly start shutting down schools now if we never did it for any other flu outbreak. You’re telling me that when you grew up, your schools never had flu outbreaks? Mine stayed open. It shouldn’t be different now.

  38. Economists, on the whole, are selfish, evil fucks who don’t understand that “the market” is a fiction and people are real. They literally believe it’s the other way around, which is how you get evil assholes like the jerk upthread arguing and voting against humanity itself. Whether you admit out loud that you actively want people to die or not, that IS what you’re advocating. Period. Deal with it, you sick, evil jackass.

  39. Pretty Amiable:

    Inflation is NOT just a rise in the general price level. Prices rise in a market for many reasons – changes in demand, supply the cost of capital and the cost of labor being some of those reasons. Inflation is a “monetary” phenomenon which in turn leads to a higher nominal price level for assets as the real value of each monetary unit loses purchasing power and buys fewer goods and services.

    It is probably more accurate to say that there will be a trade-off between days off versus wages, where employees will receive paid time off instead of increased gross pay.

    If, as an employee you value more gross pay over paid time off, you will be worse off. If, as an employee you value the option of more paid time off over gross pay, you will be better off.

  40. Another conservative takes Econ 101 and finds that it reinforces his worldview. What our conservative doesn’t know* is that there are actually other ways of thinking about the world – and even other economic theories that are a more closely aligned with reality than 101 level perfect markets.

    So, PA, do you really think the US labor market is one in which there is no inequality of power? No inequality of information? No irrational actors? No external forces acting to distort the market? Because unless you can honestly answer yes to those questions (in which case I think we can safely conclude you’re delusional), your simplistic theories aren’t going to provide meaningful insight.

    *Or, maybe more likely, deliberately ignores.

  41. I just saw Jamie Galbraith speak. He said, and I’m paraphrasing, “If you want higher minimum wages, raise them. If you want well-paying jobs, create them.”

    So not all economists belong to the deliberately simplistic laissez-faire school. There are progressive economists. And they are right.

  42. Incidentally, the laundromat? If she picked it up there, chances are it’s not from one of the employees there. The pharmacy? Who else is at the pharmacy? Oh right, sick people. You can’t skew this without any real statistics, so stop now.

    I don’t know where you live, but in smaller midwestern rustbelt cities, laundromats don’t have a cross-section of the populace using them. It’s poor folks and old folks. Poor folks because they don’t have laundry facilities at their apartments, and old folks because they have a hard time negotiating the stairs in their homes. They don’t really have employees there (at most, anyway), but the people washing their clothes there are almost always people with no sick leave. Also, “pharmcies” here don’t just sell drugs and medical stuff. They also function as de-facto bodegas/”convenience stores”, as the supermarkets are all out by highway interchanges, past the bus lines (if indeed there are buses at all). People buy food at pharmacies too. In some cases, it’s the only grocery for miles. They are staffed by, and frequented by, mostly people who do not have sick leave and can’t afford to stay home.

    Look, it’s not my fault you’ve internalized your own oppression. That you are worried more about the CEOs and the Boards of Directors than about the people you’re rubbing elbows and sharing airspace with. Take a good look at CEO pay in comparison with worker pay, and tell me that the fault of unemployment lies with the workers who are uppity enough to not want to work for bread and water. Sheesh. You are seriously brainwashed.

    If they don’t like not having paid sick days, then they can leave the industry.

    Yeah, because it’s not like they need to eat or have shelter or anything. If you’re a grad student, you are already tremendously privileged, and don’t come here and try to shit anyone—you wouldn’t take a job for 20 grand with your MBA. Please.

  43. Universal healthcare is a human right. And I think paid sick leave is part of that. If you don’t offer paid sick days, you’re penalizing employees for doing the right thing, what all the well-meaning co-workers and public health officials say they should do—staying home when they’re sick.

    The U. S. health system is so fucked up that even instituting paid sick leave immediately, though it would improve a lot of people’s lives and help stop the spread of communicable diseases, would be a drop in the bucket. Here in Canada, it would make more of a difference.

    Probably said this on La Lubu’s earlier thread, but: the people who don’t get paid sick days—the people who can get fired, or written up, because they call in sick—the people who work as long as they can actually get up because they aren’t guaranteed any hours—are people like me. Minimum wage or just above, working menial jobs where we serve lots and lots of people every day. Cleaning bathrooms, making food. It’s not just proles shopping at Wal-Mart who can catch H1N1. It’s the worker who rings up your food at the upscale grocery store or makes your skinny vanilla latte. (You probably didn’t notice her, you were on your Blackberry, or rummaging through your designer purse that costs two month’s wages for her.) No, I’m not bitter! 😛

  44. “Economists, on the whole, are selfish, evil fucks who don’t understand that “the market” is a fiction and people are real.”

    This. If the economy “won’t work” if we give people paid sick leave, then it’s time to figure out a way of organising the economy that actually deals with the reality of being a human being.

    To be honest, Pretty Amiable, blaming people taking sick leave for your not being able to get a job is bullshit. You can’t get a job because the economic system we have depends on a certain level of unemployment (along with other, even more unpleasant conditions) in order to function. If this is making you miserable, it’s time to admit that you need to change your economic philosophy.

    How anyone can justify penalising a person for getting ill, as if that were some failing on their part, is beyond me. And anyone who does such a thing forfeits their right to be considered a decent human being.

  45. Pretty Amiable,

    Are you under the impression that the checker at Walmart is your direct competition in the job market as you go forth, trying to get a job in the field for which you have a degree?

    Wait, what am I saying? Do you know how many of my coworkers have advanced degrees? Engineering, biology, teaching, pre-med, graphic design, law…shall I go on? Times are hard, and a lot of people are taking whatever they can get. So maybe that cashier IS your direct competition. The difference is that when the economy turns around, you’ll have a shiny new degree, and they won’t. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for you.

    The problem, however, is that if we fire her for taking her child to the ER with a broken leg, she is STILL your competition, because now she’s looking for a job, too.

    ” If they don’t like not having paid sick days, then they can leave the industry. Apparently you’re under the impression that unemployment isn’t a problem now.”

    When did I say that? Please provide a quote.

    Also, HA! Yes, people in retail and service industries can Just Leave The Industry! After all, they actually have dozens of better opportunities, but only stay because they like the pretty buttons on the time clock, right?

    You have a degree. You have better options. Not everybody can afford to get a degree. Not everybody has your options. There are not enough scholarships or grants to cover everybody with the desire and capacity to learn.

    Do you know what people get written up for at Walmart, attendance-wise?
    Taking a child to the ER with a broken leg
    Missing work because the bus didn’t run due to inclement weather
    Taking a spouse to the ER with chest pains
    Caring for children too sick to attend day care
    Staying home with the kids because their child care provider is sick
    Getting sick after taking care of sick kids
    Being sick

    These are not theoretical events. These are all things for which my coworkers have been penalized. This isn’t an abstract discussion for them. This is their life. None of these events are character flaws. They are not indicative of laziness or poor work ethic.

    What do you think happens when my coworkers get shitcanned for attendance? These are not the idle rich. They can’t just fall back on their savings or their inheritance, and with the market flooded with overqualified workers, they’ll have a hard time finding a job, so they fall back on WIC, Medicare, Basic Health, Unemployment, Welfare and Food Stamps.

    These programs cost money. These programs cost ME money, because I have a job. They’ll also cost YOU money when you get a job.

    Hint: I hear a lot of retailers need seasonal help, and if you wait until flu season gets underway, you can come work with me when another group of my coworkers gets fired for having a faliable human body.

    When you read between the lines of Walmart’s sick leave policy, what you get is this: “We don’t want to pay out $70 a couple of times a year. Why should we pay benefits when our employees get sick? After all, the government will do it for us after we fire them!”

  46. Whoops, I almost forgot a few more reasons for ‘unexcused absences’:

    Having an incision re-open (at work) after surgery
    Miscarriage
    Complications due to c-section
    Excessive bleeding after birth

    I had a coworker who came back to work shortly after giving birth (no maternity leave, you know) who was pale and dizzy and literally had blood running down her leg. She couldn’t afford to leave work and miss a paycheck or risk being fired, so she would just quietly clean herself up in the bathroom as needed and come back to the sales floor to finish her shift.

    Nope. No massive systemic problems here.

  47. “I’m saying these people need to educate themselves and demand that these schools stay open. ”

    This cracks me up.

    Woo-boy. Imma go make myself some *demands!*

    Dear Ginormous Public School System,

    I have educated myself! And I demand, DEMAND!, you stay open when half the kids in the school have snot pouring out of their noses and the other half are coughing up phlegm! I DEMAND IT! I will take this shit right to the board! Rar rar! Angry grumbles!

    In righteous indignation,
    Superla

  48. Okay. I’m done with this thread.

    First, Ex-Republican, that was something I had discusssed earlier as there being a trade-off between wages and paid sick days. That wasn’t liked, so for the rest of the thread it was assumed that we can both increase minimum wages and paid sick leave, thus increasing the whole minimum compensation package. As described, CPI measures the price of a set basket of goods, and if any of those goods are low margin and companies are forced to raise prices, then the CPI should go up. My understanding is that the largest understood measure of inflation was the change in CPI.

    Understanding economics does not make me an evil asshole. The inability for you to crack open an economics book that is available at a public library near you, however, makes you ignorant. Raising minimum wage (or compensation, as it’s been defined above) increases unemployment, all else equal. To make up for the loss that a company is having per employee, they’ll cut down their work force. OPEN A BOOK.

    I AM looking at people, but I’m looking at the big picture. I do not want to increase unemployment across the board which is what this policy would do (READ AN ECON BOOK). You’re valuing sick leave for people who ALREADY HAVE JOBS at the expense of people (at ALL LEVELS of education, not just mine) WHO DON’T HAVE ANY SOURCE OF INCOME BY WAY OF WORK. If you can come up with a policy that wouldn’t have this effect, then I support it – but you have not presented anything of the sort. I’m not going to get railed at because you have a poorly constructed argument that marginalizes people who are already out of work and increases their plight. That’s disgusting. At least people with jobs have a shot at affording medicine and might even have health insurance – because the people you’re dicking over don’t.

    anon – I was responding against the general thread. You cannot both decrease unemployment and increase minimum compensation. In choosing increasing minimum compensation, you’re choosing to increase unemployment, all else equal.

    Re: the snooty comment about having read a basic econ textbook – at least I have. I’d rather have that bare minimum understanding of econ than an apparent lack thereof.

    The reason I cannot get a job is because of the recession. There is a base minimum of unemployment – whoever said that is right. But we are well above that now. This policy increases the economic conditions that would increase unemployment (all else equal).

    People who use laundromats are going to use them regardless of whether or not they have sick days. Having a paid sick day does not mean you can suddenly afford a washer or dryer. Your mother can get just as sick from someone with a sick day as from someone without. The idea that lack of unpaid sick days decrease public health is worth pursuing, but I want the data on the specifics before I concede that clearly your mother got sick because of this one policy.

    Graduate student: I don’t have a blackberry or a designer purse. And that barista? Can and should wear a face mask any time there is a health concern.

    “Yeah, because it’s not like they need to eat or have shelter or anything. If you’re a grad student, you are already tremendously privileged, and don’t come here and try to shit anyone—you wouldn’t take a job for 20 grand with your MBA. Please.” The unemployment rate is not 1/300,000,000 where I represent that 1 person. I would venture to say that the majority of individuals who are unemployed do not have a high level of education. You’re dicking them over, not me. I’ll keep getting degrees and put off paying my loans until I’m satisfied, but not everyone has that luxury. I’d argue that most unemployed people don’t. This is not me against this policy. This is me representing people without jobs as a whole against this policy.

    Jill, if we’re assuming sick leave being added adds to the minimum compensation, I gave you a reference. Can I prove it? Well, not firsthand, but I have the summation of people who have studied the economy for centuries behind me. Can you prove it wouldn’t affect unemployment? Not with facts.

    And this:
    “Another conservative takes Econ 101 and finds that it reinforces his worldview. What our conservative doesn’t know* is that there are actually other ways of thinking about the world – and even other economic theories that are a more closely aligned with reality than 101 level perfect markets.”

    I’m a female. And I can crack open a book and read what’s inside and understand it. And I didn’t assume perfect markets. Remember? Minimum wage is a market inefficiency.

    I’m done with feministe. I’m absolutely disgusted that someone pointing out that the fault in the argument of paying for sick leave as minimum compensation actually hurts others – backed up by basic economic principles – makes them “evil” and apparently a male. I cannot begin to describe how sickening it is that there is economic proof that this plan would increase unemployment and your only concern is that someone who already has a job may not be able to call out sick without some repurcussions. THAT is classist. People with jobs may not have much, but they at least HAVE JOBS, and you’re willing to push for an economic policy that will further push down an even FURTHER marginalized group of people.

    Open a book. Open wikipedia, for fuck’s sake. But don’t tell me I’m evil because I understand what other changes will happen across the US job market and because I understand that having a minimum wage job without sick leave is better than not having a job at all. What you are doing in pushing down unemployed people and INCREASING their number – that’s evil. And disgusting.

  49. Superla, as a parting thought, if you can’t stand up to the public school system, good luck standing up to the federal government.

  50. I’ve done both, actually, and it’s a remarkably similar process.

    But thanks for the wisdom. I really value it. You clearly have a lot of experience with being a working class parent of school-aged children. Or maybe you’ve read a book. Either way, it really shows.

  51. Pretty Amiable,

    Hmm. I guess your parting theory is that the businesses and countries that provide adequate sick leave are figments of our stupid American imagination? All those other first world countries just don’t understand basic economic principles?

    I also didn’t see a really good explanation of why it’s a great idea to turn an employed person into an unemployed person if their kid breaks their leg. If the system is set up so that a person can’t keep a job to keep a roof over their kids’ head, then the government is going to have to do it. It’s that simple.

    Walmart’s draconian sick leave policy, the one that makes all sick time unexcused, is a recent change. This means that Walmart was able to make absolute shit tons of money, become the largest private employer and an international company while NOT firing people just for being sick. I guess they didn’t open the same books you did, because they somehow managed.

    Amazing how these things happen.

    I don’t think you’re evil, but I do think you lack compassion, and I think your position fails to address several key issues.

  52. And one more thing, PA,

    This whole “I’m advocating for the poor, uneducated unemployed who can’t advocate for themselves” bullshit is pissing me off. You said upthread that you’re against this policy because you’re afraid it will hurt your chances of getting a job when you graduate.

    But that reversal of position isn’t even what pisses me off. You seem to think that The Unemployed is this unchanging block of unfortunates. You do know it’s a group that is constantly in flux, yes?

    My sister is about to be added to their numbers. Why? Well, because she is required to work 9 shifts a week and she has an abscessed tooth. She is given three sick days per period, but a sick “day” is just one shift. She is *required* to work doubles almost every. single. day. she works. Of course her employer doesn’t offer dental insurance, so she is in real danger of losing her job.

    Once she does, could you do me a favor? Do not *ever* fucking claim to “advocate” for her. Thanks.

  53. Chef works at a restaurant (obviously) that has a very small kitchen, and when someone calls off there is no one to replace that person on the line, thus for this and a number of other reasons, the number one rule of working in the kitchen is Don’t Call Off. If you do call off, make it one day. Tops. He’s gone in with a fever, the flu, a cold, he’s spurted blood all over the kitchen when he cut himself and needed stitches but couldn’t get them (before he was extended insurance via our marriage). It’s fucking ridiculous. He’s a working professional who KNOWS he shouldn’t be there except for his loyalty to his small-business employers who are amazing and generous people. That he has to risk his own health and the public’s health is atrocious.

    The issue is that he works for a small business that cannot afford to either pay employees for days off or provide some modicum of health insurance, and if one of the kitchen workers does call off it ruins the day’s business. It’s just out of question.

  54. Minimum wage is a market inefficiency.

    Bullshit. That may be what it says in your Econ 101 textbook, but out here in the real world, here’s what the Economic Policy Institute has to say about the minimum wage:

    There is no evidence of job loss from previous minimum wage increases.

    • A 1998 EPI study failed to find any systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-97 minimum wage increase (Bernstein and Schmitt 1998). In fact, following the most recent increase in the minimum wage in 1996-97, the low-wage labor market performed better than it had in decades (e.g., lower unemployment rates, increased average hourly wages, increased family income, decreased poverty rates).

    • Studies of the 1990-91 federal minimum wage increase, as well as studies by David Card and Alan Krueger of several state minimum wage increases, also found no measurable negative impact on employment.

    • New economic models that look specifically at low-wage labor markets help explain why there is little evidence of job loss associated with minimum wage increases. These models recognize that employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.

    • A recent Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) study of state minimum wages found no evidence of negative employment effects on small businesses.

    Perhaps you haven’t looked lately, but the U.S. economy is…what? 70% based on consumer spending? Jeez, now what happens when people don’t have disposable income. If you guessed, “the economy turns to shit!” then step right up for your kewpie doll, you’re a winner!

    Since you’re such a fan of reading, why not read, A New Social Contract: Restoring Dignity and Balance to the Economy”. Because here’s a news flash for you—the “market” isn’t neutral. It doesn’t exist all by its lonesome. It is created by human beings, ostensibly for human beings. Lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!) don’t have an economy; they have an ecology. We can change our economy so that it serves the greatest number of people. Read what libdevil pointed out again:

    “So, PA, do you really think the US labor market is one in which there is no inequality of power? No inequality of information? No irrational actors? No external forces acting to distort the market?”

    and what anon said:

    When you read between the lines of Walmart’s sick leave policy, what you get is this: “We don’t want to pay out $70 a couple of times a year. Why should we pay benefits when our employees get sick? After all, the government will do it for us after we fire them!”

    and think about who is subsidizing those low, low prices (actually, not so low prices. After the local businesses are driven out, the prices get much higher—-and if you lived outside a major metropolitan area, you’d realize that).

  55. There’s no proof that the death rate for the swine flu is different than any other flu. The people that are dying and are constantly in the media typically had weakened immune systems and are the same people who would have died if they had gotten the standard (“”) flu.

    You are an IDIOT. Why the hell are you giving medical advice? H1N1 is different than the seasonal flu because the people who are getting extremely sick and dying are *not* the usual very young/very old — they are healthy young people, including kids, teens, and young adults up to ~25yrs old. It would take you all of a google to find this out. The H1N1 we have going around this year is also showing the same classic pandemic signs as the really terrible flu from 1918 (yanno, the one that left *corpses in the street* because everyone was too sick to dispose of them?) That flu also appeared in a weak form in the spring, then disappeared over the summer, then came back much stronger the next winter, targeting young and healthy people.

    And yeah, this iteration of a pandemic isn’t at that point (or even near it) but why wait until it is? Encourage people to stay home if they’re sick and it will never have a chance to get as bad as the 1918 flu. Giving everyone paid sick leave is part of this prevention (the ounce of stuff that is worth a pound of cure? Remember?)

  56. There is something really, really wrong when your doctor is warning everyone not to eat at the local Hardee’s because most of the employees there have Hep A., but can’t stay home sick because staying home sick means not getting paid and maybe getting fired. Our family doctor had to do this a few years back.

    My husband works at a national chain restaurant. He pretty much has to go to work every morning, because he is the only person in back from 6 to 7 in the morning. He’s gone in with a fever, coughing, sneezing, chills, vomiting, and worse. Because of his position, there’s pretty much no one he can call. So he goes to work sick, and works until it’s either dead enough or enough people have come on the line so he can go home. Of course, mandating paid sick leave wouldn’t necessarily alleviate the restaurant’s staffing problems. But it would mean that a nasty bout of illness wouldn’t cost him half his paycheck for the fortnight.

    My company does allotted personal days, which certainly cuts down on the “faking” sick phenomenon. Unfortunately, we start at 12 days off per year. It slowly increases with time spent at the company, but after five years, employees still have 15 total paid days off per year. The result? Everyone comes in sick, especially the parents, because they need to hoard their paid days off for when their kids inevitably get sick. I know, 12 or 15 days off per year is certainly better than none, but our company policy also contributes to illnesses spreading rapidly through our office.

  57. And those parents who come in sick, because they need their sick days to look after their sick kids? They knock the pins out of those of us who don’t have kids, but sit next to them at work. I understand and I sympathise with those parents, but I, too, am one of those apparently disposable people with compromised defences against respiratory infection (you know, those “people who’d die anyway”), and I’m packed to the gills with the antibiotics and everything I need to keep me alive while the nice woman next to me coughs, and the woman a couple of desks away puffs on her inhaler for that viral pneumonia she’s treating. I understand she needs to save her time – but what she has could kill me. You have no idea what it’s like to live this way, you couldn’t possibly – not and spout off what you’ve said. You’re not speaking for anybody I know.

Comments are currently closed.