Paid sick day efforts gain steam
HARTFORD, Conn. — For school bus driver Jamille Aine, a cold is more than an inconvenience. His employer does not offer paid sick days, so if he can't shake the bug, he may not be able to pay his bills.
Some 46 million U.S. workers lack paid sick days, but lawmakers in 12 states — including California, Connecticut, Minnesota and West Virginia — have proposed legislation in the past year that would require businesses to provide them.
Dale Butland of Ohioans for Healthy Families, an advocacy group pushing a November ballot initiative that would require employers to offer paid sick days, said the effort picked up steam in Columbus and other state capitals because federal legislation has stalled.
Businesses — especially small companies — argue that forcing them to offer paid sick days hinders their ability to provide a flexible array of benefits, such as a mix of vacation and personal days that also may be used by employees when they are sick. And they say it's a costly new mandate for businesses already struggling through a contracting economy.
Bills requiring paid sick days were rejected or allowed to die in several state legislatures.
Nearly all large companies already offer paid sick leave to at least some of their workers, but state and federal mandates could require them to expand the benefit.
Advocates say the benefit is particularly needed for employees who handle food or work with children.
Aine, who drives Stamford students ages 3 to 17 to school, cited that as a reason he would like to have the financial flexibility to stay home when he's sick.
"It's not just for me, but for the people you drive," he said.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 43 percent of the private industry labor force worked in 2007 without paid sick time, a group primarily made up of low-paid employees at small businesses.
Proposed federal legislation would provide workers with seven days of paid sick leave a year for employees who work 30 or more hours a week.
