|
Paid sick days are a healthy ideaGUEST EDITORIALWednesday, June 17, 2009 | |
As the initial panic over H1N1 flu subsides and gives way to a more reasoned, precautionary approach to containing the disease, Colorado has learned an important lesson: The presence at work of people who appear to be ill, even mildly ill, endangers all our health and threatens all our pocket-books.
The Centers for Disease Control, which exists to understand these matters and advise the nation, recently urged everyone who might be experiencing flu symptoms to stay home from work or school in order to limit the spread of contagion. And President Obama buttressed that advice by “urg[ing] employers to allow infected employees to take as many sick days as necessary.”
Disincentives for skipping work
But it’s not that easy here in Colorado to stay home from work when one has a touch of the flu, or a bad cold, or other communicable disease. Staying home means losing pay one cannot afford to lose, or worse, losing a job when replacement jobs are distressingly hard to find. In recessionary times, even the most public-spirited employees find, to their chagrin, that doing the right thing by the nation’s health is often unaffordable.
But it need not be that way. If employers were to simply provide seven paid sick days per year, employees would be persuaded to protect their colleagues’ and customers’ health by staying home when they suspect they might be contagious. Fewer employees would become infected at work, and this would lead to massive savings for the businesses that depend on them.
Economic benefits
Fewer absences due to sicknesses caught on the job would be just the first of four economic benefits to employers.
The second would derive from the fact that, under the present regime, many employees who do catch something at work, nevertheless come to work themselves, ill, and their productivity plunges.
Third, employees who stay home to recover from an illness recover more quickly than those who don’t. So they’re back to 100-percent productivity more quickly.
And fourth, paid sick days reduce employee turnover because employees are not laid off for failing to report when ill.
These economic benefits outweigh the costs. The Institute of Womens’ Policy Research studied the matter in detail and concluded that paid sick days would save the nation’s businesses more than $8 billlion a year in increased productivity and reduced employee turnover.
Little to no strain
Employers who have moved toward paid sick days have found the new policy caused them little, if any, strain. Kevin Westlye, director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, helped San Francisco restaurants implement sick day policies in 2007. He noted that “sick leave is one issue where [restaurant owners] just looked at adjusting their policies and moved on. It hasn’t been a big issue.” And Lindsey Lee, a Wisconsin coffee shop owner who adopted a paid sick day policy in 2006, said it had been a success, helping prevent the spread of illness among his employees.
“A person is not coming in sick, and then two days later there are two employees not coming in, and then three days later three employees not coming in,” he said. “It has helped in the long run.”
Popular around the world
Since paid sick days are good for public health and good for business as well, it is not surprising that every one of the world’s 20 largest economies, except for ours, has implemented paid sick days as national policy.
It’s time we instituted this sound, common-sense approach to enhancing health and increasing profits here in Colorado. It’s time we passed a paid sick day bill, and I urge all Coloradans, from both business and labor, to support it.
The views expressed in this guest editorial are those of Rep. Daniel Kagan, D-Denver, and not necessarily those of the Denver Daily News. Respond to this editorial at editor@thedenverdailynews.com.
|
