Support workers to stay at home

Stay home if you’re sick.

That’s an urgent plea we hear from public health officials about as often as “wear a mask” and “keep your distance.”

It’s even more important now that the second wave of COVID-19 is hitting hard. Federal officials are warning that we could be seeing 20,000 new cases a day across the country by the end of December if current levels of social contact don’t change.

At the provincial level, political leaders are sounding the alarm as well. In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford calls the situation “extremely serious” and has declared what he called new “lockdowns” in Toronto and Peel Region for 28 days, starting on Monday.

There’s no question: We’re facing a new crisis and we have to do everything we can to stop the coronavirus from spiralling out of control.

The message is coming through loud and clear.

So if “stay home if you’re sick” is such a fundamental plea, why does the Ontario government make it so hard for many workers to do just that?

For too many workers with rent or a mortgage to pay, groceries to buy and kids’ Christmas wish-lists to consider, it’s advice that is still hard to follow. Labour standards in Canada have plummeted to the point that less than half of all workers have access to paid sick leave through their employer.

Among low-wage workers, who are a major part of the workforce deemed essential in the pandemic, that figure is closer to just 10 per cent.

In Ontario, workers had two paid sick days — not enough, but at least a start — until Ford won the 2018 election and tossed that out, along with a planned increase in the minimum wage.

Provincially mandated paid sick days for workers made good sense, even before the pandemic struck. Who really wants people who work in food preparation or with frail seniors going to work when they’re sick?

But once COVID-19 struck, it became even more obvious that workers shouldn’t have to choose between doing the right thing (staying home when sick) and being assured of a paycheque (going to work regardless).

In hard-hit Peel Region, for example, the absence of paid sick days is clearly a factor in outbreaks of COVID-19. Many workers there are employed in sectors like transportation and food processing.

Without guaranteed paid sick days, they’re more likely to ignore symptoms of the disease and go to work anyway — with all-too-predictable results.

The federal government stepped in recently to offer a sickness benefit of $500 a week for up to two weeks. That’s a big improvement, but that money doesn’t come as quickly as a paycheque and some families are on such tight budgets that they can’t afford to wait.

The federal benefit is also temporary, so it doesn’t solve the longstanding problems that the pandemic has made more obvious.

Asked about this in recent days, Ford has pointed to a law passed by his government that says workers can’t be fired for staying home when they’re sick. He doesn’t seem to see what an incredibly low bar of protection that is for workers and, in the context of a highly contagious virus, the broader community.

The law that Ford points to gives sick workers the right to stay home and make no money and hope their annoyed employer doesn’t find an excuse to let them go. It doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be paid.

And since many are on contract or working through temp agencies, it doesn’t give them much confidence that they won’t lose their jobs after all.

These workers deserve better. It’s been clear for many months that guaranteed sick days are one of the most fundamental ways to prevent workers from turning up at their jobs with symptoms of COVID-19.

If the Ontario government is serious about stopping the second wave, it should drop its objections to paid sick leave. It should give all workers the confidence to follow its advice and stay home if they’re sick.

They will benefit.

And so will the rest of us.

Doug Ford has declared new “lockdowns” in Toronto and Peel for 28 days