Paid sick leave continued to spread across America in 2016, one city or state at a time. It has to spread one city or state at a time, because Republicans control Congress and they sure aren’t going to pass it. But that opposition is only slowing the movement to paid sick leave, not stopping it altogether. By now, seven states and Washington, D.C., as well as 29 cities and two counties have paid sick leave laws.
- Vermont passed a compromise bill in February, which applies to people working more than 18 hours a week and 21 weeks a year and starts off at three sick days a year before rising to five days after two years.
- Arizona and Washington voted paid sick leave into law this November in the same ballot measures that also raised those states’ minimum wages.
- Chicago and Cook County, Illinois, passed paid sick leave laws that will affect around 900,000 workers.
- An executive order from President Obama will start giving federal contract workers paid sick days in January … but Donald Trump could undo that.
Additionally, New York state passed a paid family leave law. Paid family leave is another worker-friendly policy that is massively popular but being blocked by Republican lawmakers. Hopefully in the coming years it will gain momentum as sick leave has done over the past few years. Both policies are standard in countries around the world and have been shown to work just fine in the parts of the United States that have passed them. But it’s Republican policy to keep workers from having any extra rights. If an employer wants to pay more than minimum wage or give paid leave, that’s fine by Republicans, because it’s the boss’s to give or take. Anything giving workers actual rights, though—that’s not the Republican way.