Paid sick leave: Should all California workers have it?
In today's Vision section, Daniel Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee writes about the proposed legislation that would make California the first state to require employers to give paid sick leave to every worker. hat do you think?
Would sick leave give our state a big recruiting advantage by offering working conditions superior to other states -- or is it a job killer that puts an unfair and unmanageable burden upon businesses?
* The bill, AB 2716, would require all employers to provide paid sick leave for any employee who works seven or more days in a calendar year.
* Sick days would accrue at the rate of no less than one hour for every 30 hours worked, or about one day for every six weeks of full-time work, and employees could begin using them after 90 calendar days of employment.
* Employees could carry over unused time, but employers with 10 or fewer workers could limit an employee's use of sick days to five in a calendar year. Other employers could limit usage to nine days in a calendar year. * Employees could use the time for their own illness or preventive care, to recover from domestic violence or sexual assault, or to care for a spouse, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, registered domestic partner, sibling or another "designated person."
* Employers would be prohibited from denying an employee the right to use sick days and could not fire, demote, suspend or discriminate against an employee for using sick days.
Source: Assembly staff analysis of AB 2716
And here are some Web sites containing more information on the paid days proposal:
* PaidSickDaysCa.org, a group asking the government to mandate paid sick leave in California.
* www.iwpr.org/pdf/ B259capsd.pdf "Valuing Good Health in California," a report on the proposal by Institute for Women's Policy Research
* www.nfib.com/page/homeCA.html National Federation of Independent Business, a group fighting the proposal.
* www.nfib.com/ object/IO_37724.html NFIB study on the effects of the bill.
* http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_2701-2750/ab_2716_cfa_20080623_171318_sen_comm.html Senate Labor Committee staff analysis of the mandatory paid sick leave proposal.
* www.paidsickdaysca.org/press/bhatia_testimony.pdf Full testimony of Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco director of occupational health, to the Assembly Labor Committee, April 9, 2008
(Lexington Herald-Leader illustration)
Comments
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the entire concept of paid sick leave. But how can one adjust the duration of ones sickness to ones hours worked?
I am not in favor of saving up "sick hours" for non-sick vacation.
And the hypothesis that paid sick leave would run business out of business
would mean that most of the European countries should be idle and fallow
by now, because paid sick leave has been around for a very long time.
Posted by: Isabell Lawson | July 13, 2008 1:29 PM
I agree with Isabell, the single-payer system WORKS, every day for millions of people,...the really serious question is; how long will America continue to punish it's citizens who are unlucky enough to have an illness, disease, or any catastrophic health issue?
Posted by: swift | July 13, 2008 10:48 PM
Let's all become euro weenies.Paid sick leave is a joke that most employees will abuse and are abusing.It's basically additional paid vacation and reduces the productivity of the work force because of less work days.Why do we think that this is a plus? It's just another little piece of socialism finding its way into our lives into. Euro-weenieism should not be something we hold up as our objective or to be admired.
Posted by: Brian Murray | July 15, 2008 5:24 AM
Brian is so right. We should get back to 12 hour work days and 6 day work weeks, get rid of all those pesky regulations regarding worker safety, and abolish the minimum wage while we're at it. Maybe then we can compete with Bangladesh for all those great sweatshop jobs.
Posted by: Mike D. | July 15, 2008 9:51 AM
To a "euroweenie", health care access is as fundamental as firemen or police, it's simple, if you need to see the dentist, you make an appointment and go, but no money is owed the dentist for pete'sake, like doctors they are a public health service, and insurance companies don't get a cut of every visit and every prescription filled. In fact, insurance companies are completely out of the loop, which explains why their care is so much better than ours. Brian, I would think that you, of all people would resent the insurance companies having you by the balls. You Sir, are an "insuroweenie".
Posted by: swift | July 16, 2008 7:41 PM