Paid sick leave needed for workers
Only a third of people working for Virginia’s largest service-industry companies have it available
With a pandemic surging, it should be a given that if you feel ill, you stay home from work. After all, we have our temperature checked before we enter many establishments, and we’re constantly being reminded to wear masks, wash our hands and maintain distance from others.
People who feel ill should take a few sick days until they feel better, or they should find out what’s wrong and act accordingly, right? That’s common sense.
The problem is, it’s not that easy for the more than one million workers in Virginia who don’t have paid sick leave.
Add lack of paid sick leave for far too many service-industry workers to the growing list of chronic problems COVID has exposed in our society.
When state or federal politicians start talking about mandating more paid sick leave, business groups usually counter that there’s no need, because most larger employers already provide it. Turns out that’s not the case. A report by Harvard
University’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy and the University of California San Francisco says that only a third of people working for the largest service-industry companies in Virginia have paid sick leave.
Some industries, such as hardware and building-supply stores, are better about providing that benefit. Others are woefully bad. Only about 7% of workers at casualdining restaurants have paid sick leave.
Another of those chronic societal problems COVID has spotlighted is racial disparity, so it’s little wonder that the report says that Black employees get paid sick leave at lower rates than whites and Hispanics. Parents with young children also are less likely to have paid sick leave.
Lack of paid sick leave has been a problem for years. It’s one of many factors that keep too many people in a vicious circle of poverty. Those who lack paid sick leave are usually in low-paying jobs. If they fall ill and take time off, they don’t get paid. With little financial reserves, they turn to unscrupulous payday lenders with crippling interest rates. Or they lose their car or home or have their power or water cut off.
Remember, these are the working poor, people who already may struggle with food insecurity and other problems that make them more vulnerable to illnesses.
Some Virginia legislators tried in vain just before the pandemic hit to pass a bill providing up to five paid sick days a year for workers. Then during the special legislative session starting late summer, they backed a bill to require most employers to provide two weeks of paid quarantine leave for workers.
Again, no luck. The argument against the legislation was that it would put too much financial pressure on businesses that were struggling amid the pandemic.
That’s a false equivalence if ever there was one. It’s never good for a person who’s sick to feel compelled to come to work. During a pandemic, it’s not only cruel; it’s reckless and potentially harmful to coworkers and customers.
Recent studies show that states where workers gained paid sick leave through the first pandemic federal aid package reported about 400 fewer confirmed COVID-19 cases a day than other states, even though that legislation offered many loopholes for employers and health-care providers. Many states, including Virginia, are wary of a federal paid sick leave policy and would rather deal with the problem themselves.
In Virginia, advocacy groups and some legislators continue efforts to shape a proposal for a paid sick-leave mandate that can make it into state law despite considerable opposition from some business interests.
There may be room to haggle over details such as how to ease the transition for small businesses but paid sick leave should be a basic expectation in the workplace. The best employers take care of their employees, for business as well as humane reasons.
Virginia should come up with a workable paid sick-leave policy in the new year. It’s the right thing for workers, businesses and the greater community.