Paid sick days a workplace standard for all

The flu is now widespread throughout Maine. In fact, I write this shakily from my laptop at home after a few days of being sick with the bug that’s going around. Dozens of friends and colleagues have been similarly stricken. Fortunately, we all have one thing in common: We have the protection of being able to take time off from work to recover.

What most people with the privilege of paid sick days don’t realize is that nearly half of full-time workers and the vast majority of low-wage workers don’t have such protections. For them the flu bug presents a choice: Work through nausea and fever in order to pay the bills, or stay home and risk losing pay – or even being fired.

That’s why the Maine Women’s Lobby is one among a coalition of 35 groups who are advocating for Rep. Jackie Norton’s bill, “An Act to Care for working Families,” in Augusta. If passed, the bill would extend the protection of five paid sick days to full- and part-time workers in businesses with 25 or more employees.

Now that the flu virus is wreaking havoc in Maine schools, workplaces, and communities, now that the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are calling on us to stay home from work when we are sick, now that the concept of “presenteeism” – the real cost incurred by businesses when their employees come to work sick – is well established, now is the time to take action to protect the thousands of Maine people who are denied paid sick days at work.

Recently, this paper editorialized against the bill, suggesting that it was an unfair business cost. What that argument fails to recognize is the costs that businesses are incurring right now when they fail to provide sick time. Employees who come to work sick risk spreading contagion to colleagues and customers. A sick worker can pass on the flu for as many as seven days after symptoms appear and may infect one of every five co-workers. There’s also the issue of liability. A lawsuit in Nevada resulted in $25 million in damages to victims of a virus spread at a Las Vegas hotel. The court ruled that the contagion was a result of inadequate sick day policies.

This paper also suggested that the bill wouldn’t protect enough workers and therefore should not be passed. That argument simply doesn’t hold water. First, more than 400,000 workers could potentially be covered by the protection of paid sick days. Some of those with the most to gain are workers at national chains such as Olive Garden, Wendy’s and Red Lobster, who would earn new protections under An Act to Care for Working Families. This bill would help workers at these restaurants as well as the thousands of Mainers who frequent them.

Second, most of the employment standards currently in Maine law have been enacted with employee thresholds. These thresholds commonly exempt small business in order to demonstrate that the law is feasible and affordable before expanding coverage.

The real opposition to this bill is based on a very simple premise: Some business lobby groups reject the idea of government setting any workplace standards at all. Their message to workers: “You’re on your own.”

But Maine people have traditionally taken a very different perspective. We believe we’re all in it together and that the state economy works best when everyone has a fair shot. New workplace standards become necessary at times like this when the public’s values are out of step with how workplaces operate.

For example, when Mainers called for equal pay for equal work, the Legislature acted. When Mainers called for time off to welcome a new child into the world or deal with a health crisis, the Legislature acted. When Mainers called for a basic minimum wage floor, the Legislature acted.

We’re at that point again when our values are out of sync with how all workplaces operate. Few people believe workers should be fired for taking time off when they are ill. Instead, we think hard-working Maine people should be able to care for themselves when illness strikes. We embrace public health goals and believe Maine people should take responsibility for their health and that of their families. But workplace policies haven’t kept up with those values. Now it’s time to act.

Everyone gets sick – everyone should have the chance to get better.

Sarah Standiford is executive director of the Maine Women’s Lobby.