Earlier today I wrote a diary based on a piece by NY Times columnist Binyamin Applebaum highlighting the fact that the coronavirus bill deal reached by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Trump Administration excluded large corporations — those with over 500 employees — who were made exempt from the requirement that employers must provide paid sick leave to employees affected by the coronavirus outbreak. This would, in effect, leave 54% of employees with no guarantee of paid sick leave and leave their fate to the whim of their corporate employers.
In response, some folks defended it as a necessary compromise by Pelosi, that this was simply the best she could do, that to dare the Republicans to oppose making large employers provide paid sick leave would’ve been irresponsible and doomed to failure. One commenter even insisted that this provision was fake news and that the NY Times and other media outlets reporting this were wrong.
Well, guess what? It was not only true, but apparently was not even a compromise at all. It was a feature, not a bug. Don’t believe me? Here’s Pelosi herself on this subject:
Of course the bill could’ve simply mandated that large corporations provide that sick leave, but apparently that wasn’t a consideration. So instead Pelosi was left to basically beg those corporations to do it out of the goodness of their own hearts:
Boy, if only there was a way to make them do so, perhaps through a bill passed by Congress.
What this highlights once again is how Democrats all too often don’t even try to obtain maximal results for their constituents. But worse, in this case Pelosi appears to be opposed making large corporations provide paid sick leave.
I’m sure this will cause those who previously defended Pelosi on this to admit they were wrong and will now join those criticizing Pelosi and demanding that large corporations be mandated to provide paid sick and family leave for workers affected by coronavirus.