Action: Bill Offers Up to 7 Days Paid Sick Leave for US Workers

The Healthy Families Act was introduced in the House and Senate yesterday. It would require businesses with at least 15 employees to provide one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked - or up to 7 paid sick days per year.

The legislation’s preamble notes that nearly half of private-sector workers and three-fourths of low-wage workers do not receive paid sick days. Far too often, advocates say, such employees feel compelled to go to work even when ill, because they fear being fired or at the least losing the day’s pay. (My emphases)

These kind of universal (i.e., federal) bills disproportionately benefit low-wage workers, who lack so many of the protections offered by larger companies.  Furthermore, they disproportionately benefit women, immigrants, and African-Americans, who are overrepresented in low-wage work.  As anti-poverty advocates, we need to give vociferous support to this bill.

Expectations are low that it will be passed this year, but the signs look good, pundits say, next year - an election year that tends to make our elected officials more responsive to "family-friendly" legislation.  (There's a fitting summary of how our government works!)  But there's populist momentum for this bill, with 12 states debating similar versions, two cities already requiring paid sick leave for workers, and recent voter approval for an equivalent bill in Milwaukee - which was subsequently blocked by business groups in the courts.  Furthermore, groups as varied as the National Partnership for Women & Families, the Catholic social justice lobby Network and the Human Rights Campaign all have campaigns supporting the bill.

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to Support the Healthy Families Act!!   Let's bring the U.S. into the fold with the rest of the industrialized world, shall we?

Figure from the Center for Economic & Policy Research's new report, Contagion Nation.