B.C. sick leave to cover three days
Critics slam `bare minimum' benefit for workers suffering from COVID-19
Workers who are sick with COVID -19 or need to quarantine while awaiting test results will get three days of paid sick leave covered by the B.C. government, Premier John Horgan and Labour Minister Harry Bains announced Tuesday.
The measures were slammed by labour advocates and opposition leaders who say three days isn't enough to ensure someone who is ill doesn't go into work.
Horgan said during a news conference on Tuesday that, in the absence of a comprehensive federal paid sick leave program, the province is stepping in to “fill that gap.”
“No one should have to make that difficult choice between staying home and going to work sick, because they had an economic imperative to do so,” Horgan said.
However, Horgan said, he “firmly maintains” that a national program is in the best interests of workers and businesses, and he will continue to press Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to enhance federal sick leave benefits.
The proposed changes to the Employment Standards Act will require employers to pay the worker's regular wages for up to three days.
WorkSafeBC will reimburse employers for up to a maximum of $200 a day for each employee.
Horgan said anyone sick for longer than three days can apply for the federal government's Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit that provides $500 a week, or $450 after taxes, for up to four weeks to anyone sick with COVID-19.
However, that benefit has been criticized by labour groups, and Horgan, himself because it fails to replace a worker's full wages.
Alex Hemingway, an economist and public finance analyst with the B.C. branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the province should have at least covered five paid sick days to get workers through the whole first week because the federal program doesn't provide the sickness benefit during any week where the worker received employer-covered sick days.
“This overcautious approach, of not trying not to do too much, just doesn't make sense in the middle of the unprecedented public health emergency,” Hemingway said. “This isn't the time to skimp.”
Laird Cronk, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, said the three sick days covered by the province won't be enough to protect low-wage workers, who are disproportionately women and people of colour.
“Workers struggling with a COVID -19 illness face far greater than three days of lost pay, they face potential economic devastation,” Cronk said in a statement.
Greg Kyllo, B.C. Liberal labour critic, said the sick pay benefits should have been introduced at the height of the pandemic, before vaccines were being rolled out.
“You have to kind of ask yourself how many COVID transmissions actually happened in the workplace because of the failure and delay of a government-funded sick leave program being made available,” he said.
B.C. Green Leader Sonia Furstenau said that, more than a year into the pandemic, she's surprised that the New Democrats “seem to be going for a bare minimum approach.”
The COVID-related sick leave benefit will expire at the end of this year, after which B.C. will roll out a permanent paid sickness and personal injury leave program. However, the number of days covered by the permanent program has yet to be decided.
Bains said that will be determined by cabinet after consultation with employers, workers and Indigenous partners over the coming months.
The B.C. Federation of Labour is lobbying for the province to cover up to 10 days of paid sick leave under the permanent program.
Bains didn't have an exact figure for how much the temporary program will cost but said if 60 per cent of the workers who don't have sick leave benefits take the full three days this year, it will cost taxpayers $300 million.