Feds may require you to provide paid sick days
November 13, 2009 by Christian SchappelPosted in: Health care, In this week's e-newsletter - benefits, Latest News & Views, Pay and benefits, policies
The feds may soon force you to provide five paid sick days for every employee.
A bill was introduced last week that, if passed, would require employees to provide at least five paid sick days to workers with a contagious illness who are sent home or told to stay home.
Workers deciding to stay home on their own, claiming to be sick, would not be guaranteed paid sick days.
The legislation, called the Emergency Influenza Containment Act, was introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. It would apply to businesses with 15 or more employees and would take effect 15 days after being signed — and expire after two years.
Reason for the bill: Miller says he’s concerned that more than 40 million workers don’t have paid sick days.
What are the chances of sickness spreading? A sick employee reporting to work infects one in 10 co-workers, says to the Centers for Disease Control.
Currently, 39% of all private-sector workers don’t have paid sick days, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And out of the lowest 25% of wage earners, 63% don’t have paid sick days.
Hearings on the bill have been scheduled for next week.
Tags: bill, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Centers for Disease Control, Emergency Inluenza Containment Act, feds, George Miller, House Education and Labor Committee, legislation
November 19th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
So, how does this new ruling affect those companies that have PTO banks where vacation, holiday and sick time are in one bank?
November 19th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
So the employee has to drag their feverish body to work, be declared contagious, and then be sent home? How many people have they already infected at work and during the commute?? What we need is unconditional sick/personal days so that parents can stay home to care for sick children/family members/selves. Not somethat that requires HR departments to perform a medical diagnosis.
November 19th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Amen, Christine. If there is to be a requirement, it should be for all sick, not the ones who come in and infect the office so they can be sent home.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
We offer employees 70 hours a week – can be used for self / immediate family / parents ,if needed.
Onlky need a medical excuse if employee is considered contagious.
We have 120 plus employees and they are very grateful for this benefit.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Or, better yet, they set aside a part of their paycheck into an optional leave bank.
They took the job without a sick leave benefit; if they want more, they are free to negotiate.
Requiring the employers to pay for this is completely asinine. Higher net costs will result in layoffs, guaranteed.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Great! I came in sick two days this week because I had no paid time left. We have no sick days at my place of employment. It’s wrong.
November 19th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I agree with Christine. “Workers deciding to stay home on their own, claiming to be sick, would not be guaranteed paid sick days.” How is HR supposed to audit and control that? Some companies may ask for doctor notes for extended illness but are we going to start treating our employees like students? Asking them to bring in sick notes from their parents or doctors. Sick days should cover the sick, period.
I’m continually disappointed by companies who immediately start complaining that any required sick time is going to negatively affect their general “PTO” policies. If you have a general PTO plan which includes sick, personal and vacation days all in one, try stepping outside the box for just a minute to consider some alternatives. You could separating sick days from vacation and personal days – maybe just for the next coming year. If you just have one way of tracking PTO, try breaking it down a bit. Add a line to your timesheets that designates “PTO-SICK.” It might actually prove beneficial to see how many employees actually take time off for sickness versus personal/vacation time. OR consider adding a temporary policy that will provide sick days for employees who contract a contagious illness during high risk seasons such as the one we are in now. Or maybe, just maybe, think of just adding sick days.
Most companies in this country don’t do nearly enough to address our growing issues with work-life balance. We work more than most other countries and yet we have no federal requirements for paid holidays, leave or time off. Adding sick days temporarily to address a current epidemic such as H1N1 or permanently to make sure your employees are taking care of themselves is not going to send your business into the ground. Consider what it may do for employee health and moral. I’d like to see HR professionals start standing up for the human side of business once again rather than immediately jumping to the cost and administrative implications.
November 19th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
The federal government needs to keep out of the private sector and concentrate on national defense, foreign relations and international issues.
November 19th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I came to the office all but 4 out of 40 hours last week from a stomach virus – not the flu…Thought it was something else because I NEVER get sick except for sinus infections once a year. The boss made me go to the doc. So I get screwed because the 3 hours I was out were on a Friday afternoon and I can only make up time during the week the absence occurs. Yes, I know it’s probably generous that I can even make it up. But with no vacation time or sick days (still a newby), it just sucks that I have to have a short paycheck.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
That’s an interesting perspective, Sophia. Nice to know your company can handle not paying attention to budgetary concerns. Not everyone has that luxury right now. Or, depending on the industry, at a any time.
I work in a unionized, municipal environment with little control over agency revenues. The benefits the employee groups want, they’ve already negotiated. If they wanted a different benefit mix that included more sick leave, they have the power to get it. That being said, we’re constantly on the lookout for ways to either expand existing benefits for the same cost, and offer as many voluntary benefits as we can handle administratively.
We are currently operating at a budget deficit. Over the next two years, because we know what our revenues will be and CANNOT change them, I’ll be laying off 25 employees to bring us back into balance. There is no other expense left to cut.
If we give each of our current 150 employees FIVE additional days off, that comes to 750 days, or 2 1/2 FTEs. That’s 3 additional people that won’t be able to pay their mortgages, because I’ll have to lay them off.
Sophia, you want me to stand up for the human side? If you don’t pay attention to your budget and “costs”, you can’t possibly do right by your people. Destroy 3 people financially just so the people that get sick won’t take a minor hit? Not on your life.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I’m with you JP. You have to consider all factors. We recently shifted back to an all-in-one PTO plan and our employees are more than happy about it. It’s much easier for us to track as well. We’re a company with 1800+ employees so we have to count ever penny. Of course, had we thrown caution to the wind and only focused on the “human side” we’d still be a staff of 11 or not in business at all. Now, we provide livelihoods for several hundred of our neighbors.
November 19th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Sophia – why do you think we went to “general PTO policies”? To get away from the mindless bureaucy you’re suggesting we reimplement. We would just tell people that they would have to take the 5 days out of their existing PTO unless the law specifically prevented us from doing that. Another case of people who have no idea how these things work making the rules – they need input from SHRM.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Human Resources has lost the “human” side of the profession because it is being slammed into our heads that we have to be “strategic partners” in order to be successful. That would include just looking at the financial bottom line and nothing else. I think that stinks. I think we are going to have to rename the Human Resources profession sometime in the future if this trend continues.
I don’t understand why Human Resources can’t remain the middle ground for both the company and the employees. It IS possible but I think many HR professionals see being a “strategic partner” as an elevated status.
We should be treating our employees as well as we can. After all, without them who would get the job done? Giving people a few sicks days is the “Human” thing to do.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:41 am
to David:
If the government never got involved in the private sector, people would still be working in sweat shops.
November 20th, 2009 at 8:19 am
I left an earlier message regarding the need for days off…and I’m the Human Resources Manager of the company for heaven’s sake…
November 20th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
For the comment from Sophia about work-life balance. Companies have implemented strategies to combat the ever critical work-life balance, it has been called relocation of manufacturing facilities to countries that actually have people that want to make a pay check and have an improved way of life. We are not entitled to paid days off, sick leave, and happy time; employers provide opportunities to people. We have everything that we could possibly ever need to be happy around us, but it always seems that somebody feels like they need a little more from either their employer or the government to help meet their needs. These things will keep coming and coming, until we finally make our country unfriendly to conduct business in.
You know the conditions of employment when you get hired on, if you don’t like them, go someplace else and work where they offer those benefits that you believe you need. People like to sit around and piss, bitch and moan about what they need, when they need to set aside a savings emergency fund and plan ahead.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Scott:
If a company doesn’t have people to do their work, they won’t have a company. These people are important to the company’s success or failure. They needed to be treated like the important asset that they are. IN my opinion, have a few days for sick days is realistic.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Cindy,
We already have FMLA and state leave programs that cover people for these types of things, unpaid obviously. Why make employers have higher costs, I don’t know what business you are in, but I can truly tell you that we have struggled this past year and that adding a program that could potentially cost us $450,000 on an annual basis as business is not fiscally or humanistically a good idea, as we may have to reduce staffing to cover the costs of another government mandated program.
Also, we place a high value on our employee’s well being, we have asked employees to stay home when they are sick and offer them opportunities to make up lost time. However, we don’t want mandated government programs that increase our costs, I guess I have been under the mistaken assumption that people are respnsible and can take care of themselves.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
And I’m under the assumption that employees should be rewarded for a job well done. Sick days are not a hand out or entitlement. It’s a good business practice to be able to hire and keep good people. Scott, you act like an employer is doing it’s employees a favor by paying them and offering benefits. What about the employee’s “favor” to the employer for helping them to grow and maintain their business.?
November 20th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Cindy,
We take very good care of our employees. We offer med., vision and dental, in which we pay the majority of the premium for them and their dependents, offer a 401(k) program, defined benefit pension plan, provide $25K of life insurance at no cost, paid vacation and other misc. benefits, and have a very low turn over rate of employees.
However, you have an attitude of being owed paid sick days like they are right of passage and should be mandated by the government. We have functioned pretty well as a Country for the past 200 years as a functional society, without paid sick days. Please don’t try to muddy the waters by stating we don’t care about our people and stick to the issue. The fact is that government mandated programs to provide paid sick days is not fiscally responsible to a business and it should be the place of business to make that decision. If people don’t stand up against these ridiculous government proposals, businesses will continue to leave this country.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I think ya’ll need to clarify what issue you are actually discussing. The flu-mandated sick leave or sick leave in general…the way I understand it is that the government is looking at 2 options – 5 days for the flu-related illnesses in flu season or something and 7 days of sick leave in general…if I’m not correct, I apologize…
November 20th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I work for a company that offers so many sick days a year to use for yourself or family. When those sick days roll around all of a sudden half the work force is sick. Then when they are truly sick they have nothing left.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Glenda – sounds like a good reason to go to PTO