40 Million U.S. Workers Have No Paid Sick Days As New Survey Shows One In Six Have Lost A Job Over I

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/13731

By Doug Cunningham

More than forty million American workers have no paid sick days. The Public Welfare Foundation is out with a new survey on paid sick days in the U.S. that finds nearly one in six workers polled say they’ve lost a job for taking sick time off work or to care for a sick relative. Deborah Leff is President of the Public Welfare Foundation.

: “People who don’t have paid sick days are very vulnerable. They go to work sick because they don’t have any choice. Either they will lose their jobs or they will lose their wages, so they show up sick.”

This paid sick days survey done by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center finds that the lack of paid sick days for millions of workers is harming our public health and straining the nation’s health care system. Leff says there’s overwhelming public support for paid sick days for workers.

: “What this survey shows is that a majority of people in every racial group and every income level, every age group, every part of the country, both political parties see paid sick days as a basic worker right.”

National legislation guaranteeing paid sick days for workers is before Congress. Just two cities – San Francisco and Washington, D.C. – have local paid sick day laws.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[old mark]

2. Even with FEMLA laws on the books, employers have found ways to twist the law

and make employees jump through hoops to get any sick leave. I worked the the State of PA and they are masters of manipulating the law to the disadvantage of the workers...they have a huge number of lawsuits by employees filed against them as a result, but they seem to regard this as a cost of business and make no effort to improve working conditions.
There are yearly national conferences for Human Resources directors where the latest plans and tactics for "handling" workers who use their sick leave and present other "problems" to the employer. These people are called malcontents and management ALWAYS believes they are lying about medical conditions or other "excuses" to "get out of work".
I was an AFSCME steward for years in this situation and have been a witness against the state of PA in employee lawsuits, as well as many hearings regarding sick time "abuse", which means you use it.

PA State government is a terrible employer in regard to employee's rights and I am certain many others are no better - it became a national trend almost 30 years ago-treat employees like shit to "save money" for the company...

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[SocialistLez]

3. No paid sick days here. =[ NT