Since we already know that Elaine wants to mess with working families’ health by gutting the Family and Medical Leave Act, we couldn’t help but wonder what she would do with just plain old, paid sick days. You know, the kind that everyone should have so they can stay home and get healthy without worrying about missing a paycheck—or infecting their coworkers. Healthy workers make for a healthy economy, after all.

But as it turns out, Elaine can’t actually mess anything up here, because Americans aren’t guaranteed any paid sick days. None. Nada. Zero. Workers have to depend on their employers to provide paid sick leave, but nearly half of private sector workers—and nearly 80 percent of low-income workers—don’t receive that benefit.

That’s why the National Partnership for Women & Families launched a rally today in support of the Healthy Families Act. Check it out and join in here: Everyone GetsSick.org.

As Ezra Klein points out, paid sick and vacation leave would not only guarantee all workers a chance to stay home and be healthy, but it would address what some are calling the “presenteeism” phenomenon:

If you’d prefer to sniffle your day through work and use a sick day to take a long weekend, then doing so is perfectly rational. That’s not an impulse an employer will ever be able to squelch.

You could, of course, change this calculation in the margin if all workers got paid sick days and sufficient vacation leave such that they didn’t feel they needed to make a zero sum choice between staying home for a cold and being a good worker, or staying home for a cold and going to Tahiti.

He also shows us just how much the United States is lagging behind:

That’s right - the United States is the only developed country without a single day of guaranteed paid leave. Kind of makes you sick to your stomach, doesn’t it?

This entry was posted by Beth Handy on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 2:56 pm to Health & Safety.
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