The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce is fighting a City Council measure that would require businesses to allow their employees to earn paid sick days. Although the past few years have not been easy for area business owners like me, the chamber’s contention that a few paid sick days will force businesses to shut their doors is simply not true.

I own and run a small child-care center in West Philadelphia, employing seven child-care providers who look after 30 children under the age of 6. It’s not a business designed to make extraordinary profits, but I work hard to make sure we earn enough to keep our doors open.

The children in our care are the top priority for my business, so it doesn’t make sense to have one of our employees working while sick. When members of my staff aren’t feeling well, they can’t give the children their full attention. Furthermore, coughs and colds can spread quickly among children, and I don’t want to be responsible for sickening a child who started the day healthy.

As a small-business owner, I face a number of challenges, but none of them affects the bottom line more than the dedication and loyalty of the staff. Small businesses like mine rely heavily on our workers, and it’s difficult when they have to take a day off. In the long run, though, providing benefits such as paid sick days is about respecting my employees, and I’m proud to say that I have a committed staff with little turnover.

For providing five paid sick days a year – and that’s five at most, because most of my employees don’t use all five – I can count on a happier, healthier workplace, which of course also happens to be the playground, lunchroom, and napping place of a few dozen children.

When I look beyond my employees, though, I am startled at how many Philadelphians don’t have paid sick days. I see parents dropping off sick children and heading off to their own jobs when they’re sick. It’s heartbreaking when we have to care for a child who should be at home with a parent. But raising a family is expensive, and many parents can’t afford to take a day off without pay, even when they or their kids need to.

And when workers who can’t afford to take a day off are on our buses, making our sandwiches, and taking care of our kids, more of the rest of us get sick more often. That’s no way to run a busy city like Philadelphia.

A few paid sick days are not going to make or break any business in this or any other economic climate. In fact, providing paid sick days will help businesses reduce their turnover, save money on recruitment and training, and create happier, healthier, more productive workplaces.

The chamber’s opposition to this measure does not represent the feelings of all business owners. Many of us understand the benefits of paid sick days, and we support this effort to ensure that all workers can stay home when they’re sick.

Batavia School District Nurse Cathy Meyer often finds herself tangling with parents over sending their kids to school sick.

And the students don’t just have the sniffles.

One day last month, three kids were vomiting as they got off the school bus.

When she confronts parents about sending kids who are sick, she learns the truth:

The uncertain economic climate has resulted in more kids coming to school ill, because their parents fear losing their jobs if they stay home with their kids.

“It’s a genuine fear, and I understand it.” Meyer said. “If they lose their job, they might not get another one.”

“I’ve had parents drop their kids off and tell me that their child was running a fever, so they gave them Tylenol because they just can’t miss work. It’s a common occurrence,” said Sharyl Iden, nurse for the Southgate Independent School District and president of the Kentucky School Nurses Association.

While they sympathizes, they continue to send letters home with all students, reiterating the policy: Students cannot return to school until they’re free of fever, vomiting or diarrhea for 24 hours.

“We have to protect everybody,” Meyer said.

Sending sick kids to school or child care centers isn’t a new issue but while no one keeps statistics, the anecdotal consensus is that it’s happening more often now because of the economy.

Staying home to care for a sick child is not an option for the more than 40 million working people who don’t have sick leave, paid or unpaid, for themselves or to care for a child. In a tough economy, some parents who are allowed time off fear that taking the time will make them a target when layoff decisions are made.

Read more from the Cincinnati Enquirer »

It’s been a long fight, but the will of the voters has prevailed in Milwaukee – for now. Yesterday, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld Milwaukee’s voter-approved paid sick days ordinance, nearly two and a half years after its initial passage.

Passed by a 69% majority (and now affirmed by the courts), the ordinance will soon allow 120,000 working people in the city of Milwaukee to earn between five and nine paid sick days per year, depending on the size of their employer.

Despite overwhelming support from the Milwaukee electorate in the November 2008 election, the ordinance was challenged in court by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC).

The MMAC, Milwaukee’s chamber of commerce and a powerful business lobby, found no statutory flaws in the ordinance, so they instead challenged it on shaky procedural grounds. A lower court granted an injunction, and implementation of the voter-approved ordinance was put on hold.

On Thursday the Wisconsin Appellate Court found against all six challenges made by the MMAC, vacating the injunction and ruling in favor of 120,000 working people in Milwaukee.

However, the fight continues in Milwaukee as business interests are again trying to take away the voice of the voters. Wisconsin’s State Senate recently passed AB41, which would again attempt to overturn Milwaukee’s voter-approved law by stripping some legislative powers away from cities.

A recent study from San Francisco – which has a similar requirement – proves paid sick days result in benefits for workers and business alike, with minimal negative impact.

By Louis Lista

Earlier this year, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy addressed the Connecticut Business and Industry Association and voiced his support for legislation requiring large businesses in Connecticut to provide employees with a few paid sick days a year. The CBIA, the state’s main business lobby, was up in arms. To hear them tell it, granting a few paid sick days a year is just too expensive for Connecticut’s employers.

As a successful business owner and CBIA member, that’s not how I see it. In my experience, providing a few paid sick days is smart business — not to mention vital to the health and economic well-being of my employees.

I opened the Pond House Cafe in Elizabeth Park in 1999. Particularly in the restaurant industry, the need for paid sick days should be obvious. In these difficult times, restaurant workers are barely scraping by. Few of us — especially food service workers — can afford to lose a day’s pay.

I provide paid sick days because I have an obligation not just to my dedicated employees but also to my customers. It would be unhealthy, not to mention bad business, to have sick workers preparing and serving food.

A restaurant without paid sick days is a public health disaster waiting to happen. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, of 21 million norovirus (stomach flu) infections annually, fully half stem from ill food service workers. I find it astonishing that anyone would oppose restaurants providing paid sick days, any more than they would oppose requiring meat to be fully cooked or requiring employees to wash their hands.

Some have raised concerns about the expense of providing paid sick days. In my experience, however, the benefits outweigh the costs.

Since I began providing paid sick days in 2003, the benefit has helped attract and retain dedicated staff members. We employ from 30 to 50 workers, with more staff members in the busier warm-weather months. Employees began to see their jobs at the Pond House as careers. Today, we have dishwashers who have been on the staff for more than six years. That’s a rarity in my industry.

Particularly in these difficult times, having a stable workforce with a good knowledge of how our restaurant operates has been beneficial in keeping my business profitable and growing. It has enabled us to develop new approaches to attract customers, and to keep our current customers coming back. And we have been able to evaluate our procedures and reduce costs without resorting to layoffs.

That dedicated workforce is due, in no small part, to the respect I show my employees by providing paid sick days. The benefits and savings to me easily outweigh the costs.

Many employers in Connecticut (including many of the most successful) provide paid sick days because they have found the same results I have. Providing paid sick days has been a win-win situation for me, not a burden.

Employers are right to feel squeezed. But we should focus our efforts on addressing the real costs that effect our bottom line: health care and our state’s notoriously high energy costs. Both are much larger expenses on my balance sheet than a few paid sick days.

As business owners, we should not let fear stand in the way of legislation that is healthy for employees and their families as well as smart for business.

It’s easy to do, anonymous (if you want) and will only take a couple of minutes — click here to learn more and get started.

Since the late 1980′s , Washington’s Family Care Act (FCA) has helped ensure workers can use their paid sick days or other paid time off to care for a sick family member. For the most part, it’s worked well — but the FCA doesn’t give state agencies authority to stop employers from retaliating against workers who use the FCA.

Lawmakers are now considering two bills to create modest enforcement provisions for the FCA. We need your help to get this legislation passed and delivered to the Governor’s desk!

It’s easy: just call the state legislative hotline at 1-800-562-6000 and say you’d like to leave a message for your state Representatives and state Senator. (You’ll need to give your street address for your message to get to the right office.) If you prefer, you can also look up your legislators here and send each of them an email.

The best message is in your own words – but here are a few talking points you can use:

• I urge your support for (“House Bill 1828” if speaking with your Representative; “Substitute Senate Bill 5263“, if speaking with your Senator).

• For most employees and employers in the state, the Family Care Act has been working well. Unfortunately, in some cases follow up and enforcement is necessary.

• When people can care for their families, we all benefit from reduced health care costs, and employers benefit from better productivity and higher morale.

• Children and adults get better more quickly when a family member is present. Follow up care is improved when family members are able to hear doctor’s instructions.

A scene from the documentary "The Sandwich Generation" (photo: Duke Innovation Program)

Cross-posted from MomsRising.org (re-posted from Working Mother Magazine):

While all working women would benefit from access to paid sick leave, the latest data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) shows that 44 million workers in the U.S. did not have access to a single paid sick day during 2010.

A growing segment of women are facing an incredibly difficult battle in balancing work and family obligations. Women in the “sandwich generation,” or those who care for a child under the age of 18 while also caring for an elderly relative, face significant difficulty in fulfilling their responsibilities at the workplace while offering the necessary care to their loved ones.

And it is working mothers who disproportionately face this unique challenge. Research indicates that women are the primary caretakers of their children and are most often the parents who stay home with a sick child, schedule their children’s doctors’ appointments and take care of organizing follow-up care. Consequently, half (49 percent) of working mothers must miss work when their child is sick with a minor illness, such as a cold or ear infection (compared with 30 percent of working fathers).

Similarly, according to a 2010 study from Metlife, working women provide the majority of care to older frail, disabled or chronically ill relatives, and demographic trends indicate that a greater number of employees of all ages will assume the role of family caregiver because of our increasingly aging population.

Juggling all these responsibilities proves to be very challenging and can lead to some very negative outcomes.

The same Metlife study also revealed that female employees — in every age group — providing eldercare experience more stress at home than employees without eldercare responsibilities. Additionally, this segment of working women finds it more difficult to care for their own health and according to the study, are less likely to report having had annual mammograms than non-caregivers.

While the study did not specifically mention access to paid sick days, we can estimate that a significant number of women providing care to both children and elderly parents lack paid leave. As a result, not only does this segment of women face higher rates of stress and anxiety as well as potential negative health outcomes, they also lose out financially.

According to an article in the Monthly Labor Review, almost half of women between the ages of 43 and 54 provide some sort of support to an aging parent. Women in the sandwich generation provide an annual average of $1,521 in financial support to elderly parents and spend, on average, 23 hours a week providing eldercare. Without access to paid sick days, these working women are left choosing between providing care for their families and earning a full paycheck.

As the baby boomer population ages, this issue will impact working mothers, families and businesses on an even greater level. Many states, including Connecticut, are considering enacting legislation that would require businesses to provide a minimum standard of paid sick days to employees and that’s a reform we should all support.

Michelle Noehren is the Events & Special Projects Manager at the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. She serves on the Connecticut National Organization for Women’s Board of Directors.

Original post: http://www.momsrising.org/blog/sandwich-generation-in-a-pickle/#ixzz1CM2SYGLp

WASHINGTON — New research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) finds that, after correcting for job tenure requirements imposed by employers, only 58 percent of private sector employees in the U.S. had access to paid sick days in 2010. Overall, 44 million private sector employees in the U.S. lacked paid sick days.

“With unemployment so high and job searches taking so long, greater access to earned paid sick days will help ensure that workers won’t lose their jobs if they get sick or a child needs care.”

IWPR’s estimate for employees who lack paid sick days is four percentage points higher than the most recent estimate from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics using data from the National Compensation Survey (NCS). The NCS data does not account for employees who are not yet covered for paid sick days due to employer-imposed requirements for job tenure. On average, employees have to wait 78 business days (about 3.5 months) before access to paid sick days is available to them.

“The fewer the number of workers who are able to stay home when sick, the more likely it is that diseases will spread, increasing health care costs and causing needless economic losses,” said Dr. Robert Drago, director of research with IWPR. “We saw this during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic when workers without paid sick days were more likely to go to work while infected with H1N1.”

With only 23 percent able to access paid sick days, employees in the food service and preparation industry have the lowest rate of access. Occupations with both low rates of eligibility for paid sick days and high rates of employee turnover not surprisingly generate extremely low rates of coverage—leaving workers much more vulnerable in the event of sudden illness or injury. These also include jobs in construction and extraction, personal care and service, and protective services.

“This study has important implications for the nation’s economy,” said Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. “With unemployment so high and job searches taking so long, greater access to earned paid sick days will help ensure that workers won’t lose their jobs if they get sick or a child needs care.”

San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee have passed laws requiring that employers provide paid sick days to workers. Similar laws are being considered in states and cities around the country including New York City. The Healthy Families Act, introduced in Congress every year since 2005, would mandate employer-provided paid sick days at the national level.

Read more from IWPR »

You’ll find stories of employers, relevant resources, and news – and a list of over 100 supportive businesses nationwide! And it’s a great resource for business owners, workers, and others interested in learning why paid sick days are good for business. On the website you can find:

• Quotes and stories from business owners who believe paid sick days offer more than a competitive advantage — it’s simply the right thing to do.
• A list of news stories about business and paid sick days, like an article recognizing an unspoken “culture of illness” that puts personal productivity and the productivity of a company on the line.
• Resources that make the case for businesses to support paid sick days, like sample time-off policies from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Browse the website, it’s a great place to find information and resources about paid sick days!

In a recent article published in thehill.com, two small business owners in Texas write about why their employees don’t need workplace flexibility – they also need a minimum standard of paid sick time:

It’s essential that flexibility also includes paid time off. We want workers to stay home when they’re sick and not infect others – and they can’t if the time isn’t paid, or if taking off routinely results in discipline.

It is reasonable to assume people (and their children) will get sick. If employees are unable to earn paid sick days, they are far more likely to go to work sick, infecting others employees, customers, and lowering workplace productivity. These business owners understand that providing paid sick days doesn’t just help keep their employees productive at work. It keeps them out of the workplace when they are ill, giving them time to recover without losing a paycheck.

These two in Texas aren’t the only ones. At KPMG, flexible work hours allow workers to be productive employees, without sacrificing their duties as parents or caregivers. And in San Francisco, which adopted a paid sick days requirement in 2007, both the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association have noted that earned sick time had not caused undue hardships for members. The Executive Director of the Restaurant Association has even gone as far as to say, “paid sick days ‘is the best public policy for the least cost.’”

It’s not enough for these to be voluntary standards, as those small business owners in Texas tell us:

We appreciate the government’s role educating employers and encouraging best practices. But it also must set reasonable labor standards, such as paid sick days and family leave insurance plans. That gives employers like us a level playing field. And it guarantees a minimum of protection to ALL workers.

Allowing all workers to take a day off without penalty when they or they children get sick can save the business thousands of dollars in lost productivity, wages, and health care costs. Paid sick days help workers and businesses alike maintain economic stability, especially during times of economic uncertainty.