Mandated paid sick days appeal to Dems, Republicans alike
July 21, 2010 by Kerry IsbergPosted in: Employment law, Health care, In this week's e-newsletter, In this week's e-newsletter - benefits, Latest News & Views, Leave, Management, Pay and benefits, policies
A surprising new study revealed just how strongly people feel about mandating employers to provide paid sick leave – and how far they’d go to get a politician in office who’d support the idea.
The Public Welfare Foundation’s research found:
- 61% of those surveyed strongly support legislation requiring employers to provide paid sick leave. Interestingly, women, African Americans, people with low incomes and Democrats express the highest support, but 64% of people who call themselves strong Republicans also say they see paid sick days as very important.
- 75% favor a law that guarantees paid sick days for all workers, and most support pro-rated paid sick days for part-time workers.
- 69% said paid sick days are “very important.”
- 47% said they’d be more likely to vote for political candidates who endorsed this benefit.
- Just 14% said they’d be less likely to support someone with that view.
According to the survey, 40 million U.S. workers don’t have paid sick days, and many more lack paid sick days that they can use to care for a sick child or family member.
You can get more details here.
Tags: paid sick leave, poliitcal candidates, poll, Public Welfare Foundation, survey
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July 26th, 2010 at 11:16 am
While paid sick days is a godsend to many employees, we all know many workers will view it as additional vacation time; they will take the days whether or not they are sick. If this legislation is passed, it will be interesting to see how employers will react. Some may toss out vacation days entirely and just call it all “sick days”, telling employees it’s theirs to use as they wish. And talk about an entitlement society – 75% surveyed believe paid sick days to be a “basic worker’s right.”
July 26th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
We are losing our competative edge by the day in this global economy, and yet there are those that think that employers should be mandated to pay employees not to work.
I am very much an advocate for the dignity and rights of employees, and I understand the issues surrounding paid sick time, but mandating employers to pay sick time is just one more insane act by politicians with the need to get reelected.
July 26th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Our company offers six paid sick days per year, and if not used, they are paid in full. This covers people when ill, but provides a stong incentive not to waste the time. Furthermore, our shop employees get paid 7 days if they don’t use any time all year. We are in California, and one-half of sick days can be used to care for family members. We don’t ask.
July 26th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
This is what PTO is for. Once I went into my first PTO environment I became a big fan. Employees have one bucket for their sick, vacation and personal. Certainly changes the nature of “unexpected” sick time suddenly being used at the end of the year. Now if the government steps in and says sick time needs to be taken out of PTO or an amount needs to be added to PTO for mandatory sick time, it will get more ridiculous.
July 27th, 2010 at 8:51 am
I may be wrong in this assumption, but I believe that many of the respondents above are employed by companies who offer paid sick leave to their employees or offer PTO as an easier way to handle time taken. SHRM is a big opponent to this benefit, but they are a fine example of people talking out the side of their mouths because they do have paid sick leave.
Good for all of you.
Now, you get laid-off. Go out looking for another job in this time of joblessness. Your only bite comes from a company who doesn’t give paid sick leave, doesn’t give paid holidays, doesn’t give personal leave and grudgingly gives a week’s vacation until you’re there for five years and then you get another week. What generosity!
You have no choice. In order to keep food on the table, a roof over your head and clothes on your back you must take this wonderful job and all it doesn’t offer. It will be, perhaps, surprising to you how fast YOU start complaining about the lack of paid sick leave when either you or a loved one desperately needs it.
Will there be those who abuse it? Of course. But I disagree that it will be “many.” It’ll just be the same few who take advantage of all employer benefits, presently. Do we once again punish all for the actions of a few?
I suggest that no one be so fast to denigrate this benefit. You may need it in the future.
July 27th, 2010 at 9:33 am
My spouse’s company went from separate vacation and sick leave to a combined PTO bank and it seems to have worked well for them. If “sick” days are mandated, they will probably have to break these back apart and track separately.
In our organization, we give up to 13 days of sick leave per year that can be rolled over. However, the department head can require a doctor’s note if abuse is suspected. Also, as an incentive not to use sick time, for any of the 13 sick days not used each year, at the end of the year we pay out cash for 1/4 of the unused sick time (so if they used 5 days, they would get 1/4 of the remaining 8 days or 2 days extra pay).
July 27th, 2010 at 10:38 am
I have been a strong advocate for PTO at my company for years. It would solve a lot of issues we have with employees who have been here a long time and have lots of vacation time and never use their sick leave. We have been paying a “sick bonus” to employees who have time left but its a small amount. However, employees look foward to getting this check so they don’t use any of the time. PTO would eliminate this with ‘use it or lose it”.
July 27th, 2010 at 11:03 am
In California, there is no use it or lose with vacation and PTO. Only sick is still not “owned”, but as noted above, we pay anyway. So use it or lose it by transferring to PTO is not an option. Good companies do good and appropriate things for their employees. What our legislators hear are horror stories of what a few bad ones do and pass laws to cover everyone…kind of like killing an ant with a sledge hammer. Maybe as HR professionals and managers at good companies, we should let the people in Congress know what we do and how much it costs. They need to hear the good stuff.
July 27th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Clancy,
I am a part-time temp with no holidays, benefits or paid leave of any kind. I’ve been surviving this way for the better part of 3 years. I am more than qualified based on your example above to stick with the feedback I provided. Not everyone complains about being in a horrible situation, and I can tell you from living it, I could call this phase I’m in horrible if I chose to.
July 27th, 2010 at 11:27 am
I work in a non-union factory with a primarily unskilled workforce. We don’t have paid sick days and we don’t have a PTO bank. These folks would love mandated paid sick days. Our owners would not.
July 29th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I have known of people who lost their jobs because they were sick for one day and the employer required a doctor’s note for ONE day of absence. I have known of people who suffered severe financial hardship because they missed a couple of consecutive days of work because they or a family member were ill. I have known young moms who lost their jobs because their baby was sick and they had to wait all day at the doctor’s office to get “worked in.” Daycare centers almost never accept a child who has had a fever within 24 hours, who actively has a fever, who has green nasal discharge, or who has more than two “goopy” diapers in a day. I don’t know what the answer is. I’m just sayin’.
July 29th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
OK, my last comment on this issue. We are a good company and provide all these great benefits for our people. Turnover is low…have many 30+ year employees. I think benefits are the right thing…I also think they differentiate us from other companies. If everything is mandated, that differentiation goes away. Companies that treat people like what Possum describes don’t deserve to have good employees. We want to hire them, keep them, treat them like the valuable assets they are, and have them give us a competitive advantage.
July 30th, 2010 at 6:50 am
Like every law of this sort, it’s good in that it protects those workers who really need it, such as in the circumstances Possum describes. But these laws also open the door for abuse. Just as with workers comp, for example, some employees will game the system and take advantage of it. It’s going to be interesting to see how the business community reacts to this law.
July 30th, 2010 at 7:26 am
I really think most of the responses show how narrow minded the HR community has become. You need to look around the world at other countries. Many of the ones that have continued an economic stbility offer not only paid sick time, but the government mandates the number of sock days per year, as well as the number of vacation days and holidays per year. Having spent 20 plus years in Canada, the government mandates every new employee starts with 10 sick and 10 vacation days after the 90 day probationary period. That means 20 days to every new employee the first year they work. In parts of England, they have upwards of 30 days a year, all government mandated.
Most employees work hard when they are working, and feel they have earned and deserve this time off. It is a changing world, the demographics have evolved emmensley, HR needs to start to evolvve with it! Been there done that, and it DOES work. Unfortunately there will always be abusers, but the majority of employees do not abuse it.
When I returned to the US, I could not believe how behind the rest of the world out labor laws are. We need to come into the 20th century, the rest of the world is in the 21st!!
July 30th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Do most of you really not get it!? Why should you care about the few who will take advantage of mandatory sick leave? It’s none of your business! It costs YOU nothing. It is between the employer and the employee who is taking advantage. Are those with paid sick leave really so arrogant that you feel you have the right to dismiss the needs of those who need the same benefit?
And, SM. I have no idea what you’re talking about. The only thing I can conclude from your comment above is that you misconstrued what I said.
July 30th, 2010 at 9:24 am
mjknapp – Yes, Canada and many European nations mandate sick time and vacation. Many also have free medical care and Denmark, I think, has free education through college. The downside is taxes are very high. But why not? Everything is paid for by the government. Now, in this country we call that socialism and a certain faction of Americans think this is a very bad thing (until it’s time for them to collect Social Security or go on Medicare, then socialism is okay I guess). I believe we are the only industrialized nation in the world where our health insurance is tied to our jobs. No job, no health insurance. No health insurance, the government steps in and allows COBRA benefits, if you qualify and can afford it, or maybe some kind of government-funded health care. I wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes like much of Europe if good medical care were provided for me and my family for life, if my children’s college education was paid for, and I was guaranteed 20 paid vacation/personal/sick days off a year. Will we ever come into the 20th century? Not as long as people believe our government is too intrusive, making too many inroads into our private lives. And not until our government can prove to the people they are more proficient at governing that they are at screwing things up.
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:00 am
In California, one company after having offered 4 weeks of PTO to employees, finally decided that the only way to deal with the insane laws there was to give 2 weeks sick leave and no vacation pay; and require proof on anything over 2 days of sick leave. Made everything much easier, and no PTO payout when employees leave. That’s where we’re headed. Companies will give the basic and nothing more because they never know what is coming next.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Pretty soon employers won’t need to provide sick/vacation time because the government will provide it. In some european countries, they pay for maternity leave for up to a year.
August 26th, 2010 at 7:15 am
I happen to be a HR Generalist and feel strongly that people need paid time away from work regardless of whether they are sick or not. Human beings are not robots. They need time for mental health, they need to spend time with their families and they need time to enjoy life.
If you look at other countries where people are allowed a good chunk of paid time off you’ll see that they are more productive and that they are generally happier people. I can’t have children but think it’s awesome that in some countries a parent can take up to a year of paid maternity leave. Why not allow a parent to raise their own child for a year? In some Canadian provinces, people are allowed Compassionate Care leave to care for terminal family/friends and it’s a great benefit. Not here in the good old US…many die alone because their family members risk losing their jobs if they’re not FMLA eligible or they can’t afford to take time away from work even if they are. The way many employers view their workers is just sick and wrong.
People are people, not robots. I personally hope the government takes over and people get the time off they deserve as human beings. I have friends that live in Canada who live much happier lives than we do here in the US due to the benefits their government offers them. Personaly I say…bring on the socialism.
March 8th, 2012 at 11:42 am
Two words: Attendance Policy. It’s there to guide the company when there is an abuser (if you follow it).
Tip of my hat to Clancy. You are spot on.