October 15, 2014
Eileen Appelbaum and Ruth Milkman
October 15, 2014, NorthJersey.Com
See original article at the source.
NEARLY 700 people, most of them children, have been diagnosed with enterovirus D68 and five have died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many more, sick with cold and flu-like symptoms, have gone undiagnosed. No one doubts that these children need a parent at home to take care of them. It would be criminal for a parent to leave a child, wheezing and gasping for breath, alone to cope with these symptoms while he or she goes to work.
Yet today, many employers in New Jersey and elsewhere can tell a parent, “I don’t care what your problem is. Come in today or don’t bother coming back!” Even parents who don’t face dismissal must often give up a day’s pay to care for a sick child. Workers in low-wage or part-time jobs are especially vulnerable.
The state Legislature has a chance to change that. It took a first step last Thursday, when the Assembly Labor Committee took up a bill that would enable New Jersey workers to earn paid sick days. Citizens across the state have made it clear that it is past time for workers to be able to care for themselves or their children when they are sick.
In Newark and Jersey City as well as in Paterson, Passaic, East Orange and Irvington, workers already have the assurance that a cold or flu will not cost them their paycheck or their job. Similar laws will be on the ballot in Montclair and Trenton on Nov. 4.
Modest costs
The biggest objection of corporate lobbyists like the National Restaurant Association to letting workers earn a few paid sick days, raised on their behalf by the Freedom Foundation and the Employment Policies Institute whenever paid sick days legislation comes up for consideration, is that it is bad for business. Yet academic studies of the effects on employers in Connecticut, Seattle and San Francisco – localities that passed such laws long enough ago to make it possible to evaluate their impact – prove these policies mean only modest costs for businesses.
Research finds that, a year or two after paid sick days laws go into effect, most employers report few or no negative effects as a result. And the economy benefits when workers keep their pay and their jobs.
Academically rigorous studies of employers’ experience with paid sick days consistently show that workers view paid sick days as a form of insurance to be used when illness strikes. They find that far from abusing the law, workers use fewer days than the maximum allowed. A year and a half after the Connecticut program went into effect, employers reported that a third of their covered employees, on average, had not used a single paid sick day in the previous 12 months, and the rest used just half the days they had earned.
Employers typically cover the work of an employee who is out sick by asking other employees to pick up the slack, allowing employees to swap shifts, or by putting work on hold – none of which increases business costs. Of course, there are instances when workers are asked to work overtime or others are called in, but this turns out to be relatively rare.
Minimal effect on bottom line
In fact, most employers report that paid sick days laws have had minimal or no effects on their bottom lines. In Connecticut, 77 percent of employers reported no cost increases or a modest one-time increase of 2 percent or less of payroll. An additional 12 percent said that the increase was too small to be worth tracking.
Enterovirus D68 is slowing just in time for flu season, which will soon be upon us. The CDC recommends that people with flu symptoms “should stay home and avoid contact with other people except to get medical care.” New Jersey can join Connecticut and California in making it possible for all workers to follow this common sense advice.
