June 5th, 2009
Sick but Afraid to Lose Your Job?
President Obama said “stay home” if sick. But how many can afford to follow that medically sound, pro-public health advice?
The flu scare revealed yet another gap between the myth of American exceptionalism and reality. American employers would have you believe they take seriously the health of their employees. But a study of sick leave policies (called Contagion Nation) from the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that at least 40% of the private-sector US workforce does not have paid sick days or leave.
The rest of the world’s 22 richest economies have taken a legislative approach to ensuring paid sick days or paid sick leave. Only the US does not guarantees some form of paid time off tied specifically to illness (for example, the 5-day flu or a 50-day cancer treatment) and it does not mandate any form of paid sick days or leave on a national level.
However New Jersey, California, Hawaii, New York, Rhode Island, San Francisco, and Milwaukee do mandate sick leave.
Are you afraid to lose your job if you take time off when sick? And even if you have sick leave, dare you use it? Has your job been threatened if you take paid time off?
Tags: exceptionalism, sick leave
This entry was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 10:51 am and is filed under Health Care, Social Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Loading ...
[...] the related report exposing America’s dismal denial of paid sick [...]