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By Amy Hanauer
Published on Friday, Oct 05, 2007
CLEVELAND: In every advanced industrialized nation on the planet but one, workers can stay home on occasion when they are too ill to go to work, without sacrificing a day's pay or worrying about their job security.
Nineteen of the 20 economies ranked most competitive by the World Economic Forum and even developing nations far less prosperous than the United States manage to provide this healthy standard.
These countries, like many American employers, have concluded it's better for everyone if the cook making our lunch, the colleague at the next desk, the teacher in our kid's preschool and the trucker driving behind us is not running a fever.
However, in the United States, if you get sick, you better hope you have a union contract or a nice boss. Because the law has no protection for routine absences.
Of course, smart employers in Ohio and the United States allow employees to earn paid sick days. In fact, the employers of the majority of workers in the state and in the nation know that letting sick workers stay home or go to the doctor makes sense for their employees, their clients, their customers and the public.
Employers who let their staff earn paid sick days as 58 percent of Ohio workers can know that sick workers who stay home recuperate faster, infect fewer of their coworkers and customers, get better preventive care and are more productive.
They also know most employees use sick days with caution.
Half of those who have paid sick days do not miss a single day of work in a year for illness. Of course, some workers use more: Those covered now miss an average of 3.9 days a year for their own illness or injury, plus an estimated 1.7 days to care for sick family members or to see the doctor if their policy allows that.
Advocates are circulating petitions to ensure that most employees in Ohio can earn paid sick days.
The proposal requires employers with 25 or more employees to permit full-time staff to earn up to seven paid sick days and part-time workers to earn sick days on a pro-rated basis. Sick days could be used if the worker or an immediate family member needed to recuperate from illness or injury, or to obtain preventive care or medical treatment.
''A Healthy Standard: Paid Sick Days in Ohio,'' a new report from Policy Matters Ohio (available at http://www.policymattersohio.org) examines sick days and finds:
More than 2.2 million Ohio workers 42 percent must work when ill or forego pay. Some workers may fear that taking a sick day can put their job in jeopardy.
Parents substantially increased work hours over the past generation, making it likelier that a sick child did not have a parent at home. Yet, only 30 percent of workers can use paid sick days to care for sick children, so more than 3.55 million Ohio workers would have to forego pay to care for a sick child, parent or spouse. Sick children recover more quickly with parental care.
Access to paid sick days varies by occupation, pay and industry in Ohio. Coverage is low in some occupations that have extensive public contact, such as retail trade (less than half); arts, entertainment and recreation (just over one-third); and accommodation and food service (less than one-quarter). These three sectors have more than 670,000 Ohio workers without sick days.
Coverage rates are also low in some physically demanding jobs that might be especially difficult or unsafe to perform when injured or ill. For example, just 25 percent of construction workers have paid sick days, leaving more than 170,000 Ohioans in that sector unprotected by this basic standard. Nearly half of manufacturing workers more than 389,000 Ohioans cannot earn paid sick days. Injury rates rise when workers in dangerous jobs are ill.
Those who can least afford an unpaid day are most likely to have to forego pay or work while sick. Only 21 percent of workers with wages in the bottom 25 percent of wage rates have paid sick days.
Middle-class Ohio workers also need better sick day coverage. If you divide the work force into four equal parts by wages, nearly half of those in the lower middle quarter (earning between $9.23 and $13.49 an hour) don't have sick days; nearly 40 percent of those in the upper middle quarter (between $13.50 and $21.65 an hour) have no sick days. Even among the top quarter of earners, up to three in 10 have no paid sick days.
In addition to the Ohio proposal, a recently introduced federal bill would provide paid sick days, legislation has been introduced in 11 states this year and sick-day protection was enacted by San Francisco.
An analysis of the federal proposal found that providing paid sick days in Ohio would yield a net savings of more than $1 per worker per week, as a result of the reduced spread of illness, reduced turnover and a healthier workforce.
A paid sick day standard would be good for Ohio. This policy would reduce the spread of disease, encourage preventive care and recovery, allow parents to be with sick children and improve worker well-being.
An economy as prosperous as ours, in which most parents are expected to work, requires that we provide workers with the basic flexibility that allows them to manage their lives and their health.
CLEVELAND: In every advanced industrialized nation on the planet but one, workers can stay home on occasion when they are too ill to go to work, without sacrificing a day's pay or worrying about their job security.
Get the full article here.
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