Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times today covers the new effort to ensure that all full-time workers are allowed paid sick days.
A growing number of organizations and activists are lining up behind proposed federal legislation that would give most workers the right to seven paid sick days annually to take care of their medical needs or those of their families. The legislation, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative Rosa DeLauro, would require employers with 15 or more workers to provide the sick days.
Home health aide worker Bertha Brown makes a living caring for the sick, but she can't afford to take a sick day herself. Brown makes $7 an hour making house calls for the ill and disabled in Philadelphia.
She has worked for the better part of two decades without ever being paid for a sick day. And her wages are so low she can’t afford to lose even a day’s pay. “If I get sick, I work sick,” she said. “I cover my nose and my mouth with a mask to keep my clients from getting sick.”
Herbert concludes:
Allowing a worker to recuperate from an illness, or take care of a sick child, without suffering undue economic hardship should be a matter of basic humanity and fundamental decency. It should not be politically controversial in a country that considers itself the most advanced on the face of the earth, and that babbles incessantly about the importance of family values.
Bless him!
