Natalie Waits
Written by: Gregory
Wallace
CNN Money
December 6, 2013
Sick days: A luxury many hourly workers don’t have
Sickness
is the state of being ill. Some
illnesses you can push through with no problem, others you have to stay home
due to risk of spreading or maybe because you can’t even leave the bathroom,
but what happens to these workers who stay home due to illness? Up until now workers who work many hours a
day do not get paid when they are home sick, but several cities are trying to
change that.
New
York City’s mayor-elect, Bill de Blasio, says that is top priority will be to
trying to expand the new sick leave law when he takes office in January. Beginning in April, New York City will
require companies with 20 or more employees to provide up to five days of paid
sick leave. The existing law will
eventually require companies with 15 or more employees to provide paid sick
leave, but Blasio wishes to make it apply to companies with 5 or more employees. As of right now, the new law will only allow
1 million workers to be granted paid sick leave, but Blasio’s addition will
allow 384,000 more workers to be eligible for the paid sick leave plan.
As always there will be people who aren’t
happy about this new plan, employers of the low-wage workers are the main ones
that are fighting against this. They don’t
want to shell out the extra money that they should already be giving them. They don’t want to see this law go any further. Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New
York City Hospitality Alliance, said the version set to take effect next year
"offers appropriate employee protections." His group represents
restaurants, bars, hotels and similar venues.
Councilman James Gennaro is also another
fighting against the law, stating that “it is costly and unnecessary.” "Typically, businesses in these sectors
handle illness with an informal barter system, where employees can exchange
shifts when they or a family member are ill. This is not something that the
government can effectively regulate," Gennaro wrote in a 2012 op-ed
published in The New York Post. The bill's "one size fits all" method
won't work, Gennaro said.
Supporters are finding every single
bright side to this plan to help make it pass.
For instance, it would be less expensive, according to A Better Balance,
than increasing employee wages by 25 cents an hour.
This sounds like an effective and
important law to pass. Workers should
get paid even when they are sick, because they can’t control when they are
sick, it just happens.
