Paid sick leave is revisited

A powerful state senator in Connecticut blasted efforts to block mandatory paid sick leave, saying opponents of the bill are airing misinformation in a bid to waylay it.

Lawmakers have proposed allowing employees to accrue up to 40 hours of paid sick leave weekly, or five days for workers on eight-hour shifts. The bill would not apply to companies with fewer than 50 hourly employees, sparing many restaurants and other small businesses the burden of compliance.

Sen. Edith Prague, chair of the labor and public employees”™ committee, said the bill is her top priority this year, and last week criticized opponents of the bill for what she characterized as misleading statements.

“The last thing we intend to do with this bill is deprive Connecticut businesses of their ability to be profitable and competitive,” Prague said, in a prepared statement. “We only want to instill this common-sense policy to help employees when they need help and as a cost-saving, public health byproduct, stop the spread of infection and illness. Even the early drafts of this bill allow for such benefits as paid vacations, personal time, and compensatory time to be counted toward the paid sick leave we envision for full-time workers.”

With overwhelming numbers in the Connecticut General Assembly, Democrats were unable to push paid sick leave through three straight legislative sessions between 2007 and 2009, encompassing an arc when company coffers were flush with cash and workers could exert significant concessions due to near-full employment conditions.

 

“The problem with a paid sick leave mandate is that it doesn”™t consider the cost of replacing a worker who calls in sick,” said Kia Murrell, assistant counsel for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, in a policy brief on the topic published in this week”™s edition of the Fairfield County Business Journal. “Adding mandates such as paid time off will force (businesses) to cut back other benefits, suspend hiring plans, potentially layoff more workers and reduce work schedules.”

 

The new Connecticut bill comes against a backdrop of several such proposals nationally, as labor groups marshal support for what they say should be a basic right of employment.

The average cost of implementing paid sick leave in Connecticut would amount to $7.50 per employee weekly, according to a new study by the Institute for Women”™s Policy Research, which has advocated for paid sick leave policies installed in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Milwaukee. Statewide, that amounts to $100 million in lost productivity, additional compensation, and administrative costs, according to Kevin Miller, a researcher with Washington, D.C.-based IWPR, who estimates employees would average three paid sick days annually.

“Aside from costs, one concern about paid sick days laws is that they will motivate businesses to relocate,” Miller said. “However, an IWPR analysis of employment in San Francisco before and after the implementation of their paid sick days ordinance found that San Francisco”™s job growth remained stronger than that in the surrounding counties.”

That suggested the policy did not have an adverse impact on employment, Miller added.

Miller gave similar testimony in New York City and New Hampshire last October, and in Maine this past January, where lawmakers are also considering requiring employers to provide paid sick days.

In a separate study published last month, Miller and a fellow researcher said the lack of paid sick leave policies likely played a roll in some 8 million Americans continuing to work last fall while infected with swine flu, possibly infecting 7 million co-workers.

With Robert Drago of Penn State University, Miller said the data suggest 90 percent of infected public-sector workers took sick days after catching swine flu ”“ with the vast majority getting paid for those days off ”“ compared with 66 percent of private-sector employees doing so. They said about four in 10 workers in the private sector today getting paid sick days.