A million workers with no sick leave

By Marilyn Watkins, Ph. D.

Megan, a server at a Tacoma restaurant, was fired because she had the flu. When she tried to call in sick, her supervisor told her the restaurant was busy and she had to come in. When she did, one of her customers complained to the health department. Three weeks later, Megan was fired. Now she works at a bar – and still doesn’t have sick leave.

Stories like Megan’s are all too common. While many union members and white collar employees enjoy benefits, 42% of the workforce – 190,000 workers in Seattle and more than one million in Washington State – do not have any paid sick days. Only 12% of restaurants provide sick leave to full-time employees, and only 4% to part-timers. Low-wage workers are the least likely to receive benefits, the least able to afford unpaid time off, and the most vulnerable to retaliation if forced to miss work.

Even some workers who in theory have sick leave are strongly discouraged from using it. For example, many grocery and hospital employees don’t get paid leave until the third day they are out – and they get demerits for every day they call in sick.

In times of pandemics like H1N1, the lack of across-the-board standards for paid sick days is a clear public health problem. But we’re all at risk when workers who handle our food and care for the most vulnerable are forced to be on the job sick with any communicable disease.

Studies show that children recover more quickly from illness and do better in school when their parents have paid leave. Ailing seniors suffer when their working adult children can’t use paid sick days to care for them and help them get to the doctor.

Three U.S. cities have led the way in adopting minimum standards for paid sick days. San Francisco and Milwaukee passed initiatives with 61% and 69% of the vote, respectively, and Washington, D.C.’s council adopted a similar statute. Coalitions across the country have introduced bills in city councils and state legislatures, The Healthy Families Act, now before Congress, would establish a national standard.

More than three years’ experience in San Francisco has shown that businesses as well as families prosper when employers are required to provide paid sick days. In San Francisco all employees must accrue at least an hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked, up to 40 hours for the very smallest companies and up to 72 hours in firms with at least 10 employees. That results in higher morale, less spread of disease among coworkers, and better customer satisfaction. Jobs – including restaurant jobs – grew faster in San Francisco than in the surrounding counties or state as a whole in the two years following adoption of paid sick days. Jobs shrank less in that city during the deep recession year of 2009.

The Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce is working to make Seattle the next city to adopt paid sick days. The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans has joined with other labor, senior, women’s, faith, employer, and community groups to endorse the campaign. A similar coalition, Healthy Tacoma, is organizing in our sister city.

Contact Lily at 206-465-4835 or lilymadeline@yahoo.com for more information – and to get involved. No one should be fired for having the flu. No one should have to risk being fired for taking their mother to the doctor.

(Marilyn Watkins is Policy Director with the Economic Opportunity Institute.)