Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
Democrats introduced a sick leave bill in Congress—again—on Thursday, as momentum for state and local leave laws continues to build. The
Healthy Families Act, introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, would give workers in businesses with 15 or more employees the chance to earn up to seven days a year of paid sick leave, while workers in businesses with fewer than 15 employees wouldn't be paid, but would be able to earn up to seven job-protected sick days.
Voters are strongly in favor of paid sick leave, and by now, enough American cities and states have experience with sick leave laws that we know that arguments that sick leave will harm businesses just don't hold up:
The public has learned, to its dismay, that more than one-third of all private-sector workers — about 43 million employees — do not have even one paid sick day to use when they or their children are ill. In food service and hotels, the overwhelming majority — three out of four workers — are without any paid sick leave. Not surprisingly, nearly two-thirds of restaurant workers report having cooked or served food while sick. Awareness that so many workers lack access to any paid sick days has translated into widespread support for legislation to remedy this situation. Polls find that large majorities of Americans across the political spectrum now favor requiring companies to allow workers to earn sick leave. [...]
Research has shown that concerns about the effects of paid sick days legislation on businesses were unwarranted. Surveys of employers in San Francisco, Seattle and Connecticut have shown that employers' fears that workers will take advantage of such laws, using every one of their paid sick days and taking time off when they aren't sick, are misplaced.
Of course, we're talking about Congress here. Democrats have been introducing the Healthy Families Act for years, and do so again despite the fact that Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are extremely unlikely to allow it to get a vote. But it's important to keep pushing such legislation because you don't win by sitting back and waiting. You create the conditions to win by pushing, for years if necessary. Sick leave is winning a lot of battles now, with
Philadelphia the latest, with a sick leave law
passing Thursday—a nice highlight for the day Philadelphia was announced as the
site of the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Meanwhile,
Maryland is also considering such a bill.
As with the minimum wage, this is a chance for state and local governments to leave Congress in the dust. The problem is that workers in places with anti-worker state and local governments will also be left in the dust—or at work, spreading the flu to their coworkers and customers, as the case may be.
