Logo from a North Carolina campaign advocating for paid sick day legislation.
As panic spread last month about a potential swine flu epidemic, Americans were advised to stay home if they were feeling ill. But for millions of workers who receive no paid sick days — including large percentages of direct-care workers — taking a day off from work can be a hard decision as it directly affects their income.
For example, 55 percent of the nation’s full-time personal and home care aides were not offered sick days in 2006 (“Women and Paid Sick Days: Crucial for Family Well-Being,” IWPR, 2007, pdf).
In response to this problem, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) have introduced the Healthy Families Act, which would allow workers up to seven paid sick days a year to recover from their own illness, to care for a sick family member, or to seek diagnostic and preventative care. Several states and cities have introduced similar bills.
PHI spoke with Nancy Rankin, a member of the steering committee of the New York State Paid Leave Coalition and senior fellow at A Better Balance in New York City, a legal team working to give American workers paid sick leave. She said that New York City is looking to follow Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco by passing legislation this summer to allow seven paid sick days a year for businesses with 15 or more employees.
Rankin says that according to a 2008 annual phone survey of New York City, 65 percent of the working poor (900,000 people) do not receive paid sick days. PHI’s research indicates one out of every seven low-wage workers in New York City is a direct-care worker.
“Losing a day or two of paid work leaves people with the choice of paying rent or putting food on the table,” said Rankin.
In the media
Unpaid sick days have become a recent topic of discussion in the media. For example, in a June 11 article for Women’s eNews titled “Trying Times Call for Healthy Families Act,” Linda Meric, executive director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women and a nationally known speaker on family-friendly workplace policies, wrote:
Paid sick days reduce the business costs of turnover, absenteeism and lack of productivity when workers are sick on the job. In fact, if workers were provided just seven paid sick days annually, according to information released by the National Partnership for Women and Families in 2008, our national economy would enjoy an annual net savings of more than $8 billion.
In a May 4 editorial, The New York Times reports that “Roughly 60 million American workers have no paid sick leave, and only a minority can draw pay if they stay home with sick children. The lack of paid leave is especially acute in this country among low-wage workers, food-service workers and part-timers, among others” (“The Cost of Staying Home Sick“).
A hard choice for workers
The issue is a difficult one for caregivers who do not want to put their clients at risk — but know that that missing work will contribute to their own financial challenges. Moreover, without paid leave direct-care workers struggle to manage both work and family responsibilities. As Rankin points out, workers without paid leave have faced difficult challenges in the last few weeks as schools all over New York City shut down due to flu outbreaks.
The bottom line is obvious: paid leave is critical to quality jobs. “Family supportive benefits play a crucial role in promoting both job retention and family well-being,” says PHI Director of Policy Research Dorie Seavey.
Fifteen state campaigns for paid sick-days are in the works this year, writes Meric. “But,” she says, “what America needs most in these tough economic times is federal policy like the Healthy Families Act.”
I would love to be able to offer our in-home aides paid sick leave, but we can’t even get a rate increase to cover the cost of doing business as is. In North Carolina, home care agencies are going out of business because the Medicaid reimbursement is not only insufficient, but it is now frozen. The money has to come from somewhere; an unfunded mandate will just put more people out of business which will put more people out of work.
Your reporting brings much needed attention to the challenges facing direct-care and other workers whose employers do not provide a single paid sick day — a basic labor standard that many Americans take for granted. I just wanted to clarify some of the information that was attributed to me.
The legislation sought for New York City would cover all workers, similar to the laws already passed in San Francisco and Milwaukee. It is important to include smaller businesses especially since so many low-wage workers who disproportionately lack paid sick days work for smaller firms. However, we recognize that small businesses sometimes face greater challenges covering a worker’s brief absence, so we would propose that they be required to provide fewer paid sick days. While the specific number of days is yet to be determined, all workers would earn a certain amount of sick time for a given number of hours worked, for example 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked.
Over 900,000 workers in New York City are estimated to not have any paid sick days, according to figures from The Unheard Third, 2008, an annual phone survey of New Yorkers by the Community Service Society. That includes 65% of the working poor, 57% of those living just above the poverty level (up to 200% of poverty) and about a third of moderate and higher income workers. The article incorrectly states that number is just the working poor.
An editorial in The New York Times today supports the proposed Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights which would guarantee basic labor standards, including paid sick days, to New York State workers in private homes, like nannies, housekeepers and caregivers for the elderly. This is an important step in the right direction for New York and the nation.
We appreciate your clarification, Nancy. And the challenges facing small employers, especially home care employers. PHI agrees whole heartedly with Judy Guthrie that reimbursement rates need to be adequate to provide family-sustaining wages and benefits, including health care and sick days, to direct-care workers.