Every ill worker deserves sick pay amid pandemic

This week, much of Ontario will emerge with fear and trepidation from another COVID-19 lockdown.

Once again, anxious health officials are warning that unless the public remains vigilant, we’re headed straight into the pandemic’s third wave.

Yet once again, thousands of workers in essential jobs will have to choose between reporting to work ill — possibly with COVID-19 — or staying at home with no pay. That’s because their employers don’t offer this necessary — and under the circumstances, humane — form of compensation.

It’s a decision these workers should not have to make. Not only is it unfair to them, it’s potentially hazardous to other employees who are at a heightened risk of catching the illness in their workplace. And then passing it on to the general public.

This shouldn’t be happening nearly a year into the pandemic. But knowing it is, the Ontario and federal governments need to put their heads together and solve an urgent problem.

Next to long-term-care homes, workplaces have become the second greatest source of COVID-19 outbreaks in Ontario. That shouldn’t come as a total surprise. Many people, often in well-paid jobs, are working safely and remotely from home. Too many others are denied this luxury.

They have to handle a supermarket cash register or drive a bus. They have to work on an assembly line or in a warehouse. They have to be there, in person, to staff the hospital wards or the long-term-care and retirement homes. And when they do, day after day, week after week, they’re prime targets for the coronavirus.

The dangers can be mitigated if workers who think or know they have COVID-19 can stay home with the assurance of getting the sick pay they need to make ends meet. But nearly 58 per cent of workers in Canada can’t access sick pay.

That number climbs to about 70 per cent when you’re talking about workers whose annual salary is less than $25,000. And that’s the income bracket for many of the front-line workers getting us through the pandemic.

The lack of sick pay for so many is one reason why a Peel Public Health survey found that one in four workers in Peel Region have gone to work while showing symptoms of COVID-19. That statistic goes a long way to explaining why Peel is one of the parts of the province that’s being hardest hit by COVID-19’s second wave. And surely other sick workers are also reporting to checkout counters, loading docks and nursing homes in other parts of Ontario,

It will be months before enough Canadians are vaccinated to bring this pandemic under control. In that time, our political leaders should slow the virus’s spread and protect some of our most vulnerable yet essential workers by ensuring they can draw sick pay.

In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford should require employers to offer paid sick days to workers at least until the pandemic ends. Our “for-the-people” premier shouldn’t balk at this.

Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals should finetune their Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit, which provides a maximum of $900 after-tax dollars for 10 sick days. As it stands, the program is insufficient and inefficient. It’s not even the equivalent of the minimum wage. And it does nothing for some of the most insecure workers, especially part-timers.

Quick, co-ordinated action on this front would be a boost for the economy. It would shield the community from COVID-19, which is why the Ontario Medical Association backs paid sick days. But most of all, it would be doing the right thing for a vast and often lowly paid segment of our workforce. Sick workers deserve sick pay. Period.