Mandatory Sick Pay

[Aramike]

I live in the People's Republic of Milwaukee, where in November our populace voted in favor of businesses being required to provide sick pay to all employees. Just this week a judge ruled that the mandate was unconstitutional.

So, I now ask the Subsim Radio Room: would you be for or against mandatory paid sick leave in your town? Why?

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/47930647.html

[CastleBravo]

If folks actually used 'sick pay' for when they were sick this wouldn't be an issue. More personal responsibility lost. We've all done it, but it doesnt make it right.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I would be against it, despite the biased form the question was posed in, for the same reason that CastleBravo is opposed to it. It destroys incentive. It's like asking if employees should be payed to attend free T-shirt day the fair, or if they should just be given an extra two weeks' paid vacation.

Ultimately, it needs to be the employer's decision. If they do pay for sick leave no matter what, they'll suffer a loss in productivity. If they refuse, they might suffer a bigger loss in productivity due to everyone being sick, or because they suffer a high turnover rate. Let them decide, that's why they make the big bucks, or lose everything.

[d@rk51d3]

Here, you are awarded 6 days (I think) per year, paid sick leave. Any more than 2 days in a row will (usually) require a doctors certificate. What get's up my nose, is the lack of incentive for not taking "sickies", and those that habitually take them on Mondays or Fridays, thus making a long weekend of it. In 10 years at my last job, I had about 6 days off, 3 of which were spent in hospital............. no rewards, no thanks, not even an acknowledgement. Now, If I'm sick enough, I stay home. They don't hand out medals for killing yourself at work.

[August]

The school calls them "personal days" and we get 6 per year.

[SteamWake]

I probably have like a month of sick leave due to me, and at least 2 weeks of vacation accumulated.

I just dont use it. Im old fashoned that way.

Its kind of sad really where work ethics have gone.

[mookiemookie]

Employers need to realize that people have lives outside of work. If an employee needs to take a sick day for whatever reason (waiting for the air conditioner guy to come, pipes in your house burst, ate a bad burrito the night before) it shouldn't be a financial burden upon them.

[antikristuseke]

Here you get sick pay only when you have an actual doctor verify you as being sick. If you call in sick you have effectivaly violated the terms of most employment contracts and can be fired for it, though have never heard that happening, in allmost all cases you can just talk wit your employer if you need a day or two for what ever reason.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Employers need to realize that people have lives outside of work. If an employee needs to take a sick day for whatever reason (waiting for the air conditioner guy to come, pipes in your house burst, ate a bad burrito the night before) it shouldn't be a financial burden upon them.

Every employer I have ever had has been fairly accomodating in such circumstances, but employees need to realize that their job is not a right and that there is more going on than just their own lives. In small businesses particularly, the attendance of a single employee can have a major impact on quarterly revenue and the welfare of the company and all their coworkers' livleyhoods. The whole idea of being an employee is that you are paid a wage that you and your employer agree upon for your continued service and skills. If the employer does not present terms you find favourable, you can seek employment elsewhere, and they can seek employees elsewhere.

Unless you like the idea of every business in America having the same quality of service, product selection, and prices(and attendant taxes) as Amtrak, the Post Ofiice, or the DMV, not to mention a host of unionized companies, you might want to reconsider your view. If your goal is to make our nation's industries uncompetitive in the world market for the sake of your personal convenience, then please persist in advocating your stance.

I don't mean to be too contrarian or agressive, Mark, but I'd like to hear your views when confronted with an argument like the one I posited above. I usually find that your posts offer a good perspective, so I'd like to hear what you have to say in response to this, if you don't mind.

[NealT]

IMHO, businesses should over vacation and/or sick pay. However, once someone uses it, they should not be advanced it. After all, FMLA provides for unpaid leave, not paid leave...

BTW - this is post 999...

[Task Force]

congrats on your 999th post.:yeah:

[gimpy117]

You should. your boss would stay home if e was. Hell, my mother's boss goes to vail every other week. and when people have to go to work with sickness, the flu etc. and get everybody else sick just because they literally can't afford to miss work (like my mom ) I think that's wrong.

[mookiemookie]

Every employer I have ever had has been fairly accomodating in such circumstances, but employees need to realize that their job is not a right and that there is more going on than just their own lives. In small businesses particularly, the attendance of a single employee can have a major impact on quarterly revenue and the welfare of the company and all their coworkers' livleyhoods. The whole idea of being an employee is that you are paid a wage that you and your employer agree upon for your continued service and skills. If the employer does not present terms you find favourable, you can seek employment elsewhere, and they can seek employees elsewhere.

Unless you like the idea of every business in America having the same quality of service, product selection, and prices(and attendant taxes) as Amtrak, the Post Ofiice, or the DMV, not to mention a host of unionized companies, you might want to reconsider your view. If your goal is to make our nation's industries uncompetitive in the world market for the sake of your personal convenience, then please persist in advocating your stance.

I don't mean to be too contrarian or agressive, Mark, but I'd like to hear your views when confronted with an argument like the one I posited above. I usually find that your posts offer a good perspective, so I'd like to hear what you have to say in response to this, if you don't mind.

Aye aye, sir. :salute: Let me sleep on it tonight.

[GoldenRivet]

i think that we should have sick pay.

however i think that it should be tightly controlled sick pay, and the amount of sick pay you have saved up would be the result of your hours worked.

for example. you should gain 1 or 2 hours of sick pay for every 100 hours worked. (or something similar)

also, multiple sick calls should draw scrutiny.

when i worked as a Regional Airline Pilot, we were required to report to the chief pilot prior to being authorized to return to work, part of the brief 2 minute meeting involved us providing a brief explanation of our absence, upon which the chief pilot entered into the computer system an authorization which indicated we were medically fit to fly passengers.

our work record, which was available to us at any time on a computer screen would show any and all absences from work - be they excused or unexcused absences for a legality, a company reason, or sick time, no show, vacation time etc.

if, upon return from sick, you reported to the chief pilot (your most immediate boss) and it became apparent that you have had - say, 3 sick calls in the past 30 days... eyebrows were raised, and you would likley have to explain your sudden rise in health problems to the medical department. (yes, believe it or not we had a medical department complete with a team of RNs and MDs available to us during normal business hours at a very hospital like environment located at HQ)

other eyebrow raisers - if you had vacation for 7 days, and called in sick for the 3 days following vacation - it was glaringly obvious that you wanted your 7 day vacation to be a 10 day vacation. :shifty:

the typical rule of thumb... keep it under 3 sick calls in a rolling 12 month period. and if you had a bad case of uncontrollable diarrhea following your vacation where you had numerous exotic foods - and you simply couldnt control calling in sick for the 3 days after vacation was over - bring a doctors note - it would help your case if you did.

when i resigned my position with this particular red white and blue striped airline, i had 4 or 5 sick calls in a period of 36 months - something i felt was completely reasonable as it averaged to 1 sick call every 7 months.

if your "sick out" behavior can be closely monitored in such a fashion - it becomes harder to abuse the system.

[Aramike]

I would be against it, despite the biased form the question was posed in, for the same reason that CastleBravo is opposed to it. It destroys incentive. It's like asking if employees should be payed to attend free T-shirt day the fair, or if they should just be given an extra two weeks' paid vacation.

Ultimately, it needs to be the employer's decision. If they do pay for sick leave no matter what, they'll suffer a loss in productivity. If they refuse, they might suffer a bigger loss in productivity due to everyone being sick, or because they suffer a high turnover rate. Let them decide, that's why they make the big bucks, or lose everything.I agree with you 100%. The reason I posed the question the way I did is because that is the way our local liberal rag of a newspaper was reporting the referrendum at the time, and the question on the ballot was loaded as well.

Such a proposal is flat-out stupid. It sounds great to the uninformed, but then they fail to consider that SOMEONE is going to have to pay for these unproductive days. Most large corporations already have some form of paid time off. So guess who this hits?

Small businesses, of course. And who's going to pay for the business owner's sick days? Also, how many jobs will be cut to pay for this proposal? To your typical moron, it sounds great to mandate that your boss pays for your sick time ... until your boss can't even afford to have you on the payroll anymore. Now you went from maybe losing a couple of days worth of income to losing your income altogether.

This is nothing more than liberal "feel-good-ism". What will they do when businesses set up shop in municipalities surrounding Milwaukee, rather than within the city proper? Maybe that guy who was going to open up a shop in a blighted area, helping to improve the community, just won't do it now.

What's next: a mandate regarding how many jobs a business must provide?

[Onkel Neal]

Employers need to realize that people have lives outside of work. If an employee needs to take a sick day for whatever reason (waiting for the air conditioner guy to come, pipes in your house burst, ate a bad burrito the night before) it shouldn't be a financial burden upon them.


Wait...it shouldn't be a financial burden upon who? The employees? What about the employers?

[Aramike]

Wait...it shouldn't be a financial burden upon who? The employees? What about the employers?Exactly.

I think part of the problem is the common misconception that business owners are wealthy people. Sure, they probably make more than their employees - when times are good. However, they also assume the risks and incur the greatest losses when times are bad.

Most business owners are simply middle class people with families to support, a mortgage or two, and a sense of the American dream. Why is it okay for them to suffer the financial impact of both their OWN health and the health of their employees?

[Stealhead]

This is a pretty good one. I spent 12 years in the Air force where you get 0 "sick days" you either appear on time for duty or will be punished. Of course we have sick call and in most cases I saw the person either show up or called the SNCO and requested they be allowed to report to sick call. If the doctor finds that you have an illness you are given orders from him to either not report for duty for a given time or perform light duty.And in the worst case be given a prescribed number of days of convalscent leave.(reciving full pay during this time)

I like this system as it keeps someone who is truly ill and could spread sickness or harm themselves from performing thier duty and or exposing others. I guess in the civilian world you cant really have a system like this which is why most places either give x number of sick days per year(after one has completed thier probationary peroid) or some give as per August some of both.And everyone must admit sometimes nothing is wrong at all with you but you just dont want to work once in a while for some reason nothing wrong with this its the people who feel this way all the time that f... it up.

The other side of this coin is when someone is sick but they cant get a "paid" sick day and they need the money they show up likely making other people get sick harming the effectiveness of the work force and therfore costing the employees and the employer.I guess it depends on the person in this case do they not work and lose out on the money or risk putting someone else in the same boat.I myself would stay home sans pay though i pretty much never get sick at all which means swine flu will either kill my ass or I will be immune to it as I seem to be to every other thing out there.i played in the dirt and mud alot when I was a kid I always knew it would do me some good.:haha:

I also for the record consider my self far from being either a Dem. or a Rep. I dont really like to tell anyone what to do and that is what both of these parties love to do so you can say that I am a Libertarian! Live Free Or Die!

I think the pole should be simply Yes or No as well as it is now it forces ones hand.

Though if a judge questions the legality...:doh:

[Onkel Neal]

Exactly.

I think part of the problem is the common misconception that business owners are wealthy people. Sure, they probably make more than their employees - when times are good. However, they also assume the risks and incur the greatest losses when times are bad.

Most business owners are simply middle class people with families to support, a mortgage or two, and a sense of the American dream. Why is it okay for them to suffer the financial impact of both their OWN health and the health of their employees?


Agreed. If a company wants to offer sick leave as part of the compensation, fine. They can probably attract better employees that way. But I don't think we need Big Brother to dictate it.

[CastleBravo]

I'm just thinking out loud but it seems very narcissistic to call in sick when one isn't and to show up when one is.

I have been called a narcissist/egomaniac myself, but I can hardly be compaired with the mythical narcissus, when I am so obviously more akin to Zeus.

[Stealhead]

Well I suppose that someone is being narcissistic when they do that but that does not mean they are a bad person or a full time narco. All though a few weeks ago my daughter was satying at the Grands house and my wife and I decided to "uh" take the off.:03:

Though both our employers allow personal days so that is what we did. If I was unable to do this Id have claimed a sick day.I have a very strong work ethic but I also belive that you must define yourself as person through more than your job some day you will have to retire from it and then what do you have?.Sometimes I pick one part of my over all "ethics" over one part of them.


Zeus is the "God of Gods" so in that light I suppose that means that Zeus can do what ever he wants sort of.

[porphy]

Wait...it shouldn't be a financial burden upon who? The employees? What about the employers?

As I see it, this is a financial burden that should be shared. Sickness, if genuine and severe enough to stop doing your work properly or risking others health at work, is something that happens. No one is at fault, everyone is at the receiving end some way or the other. No one can foresee if you're going to be sick or not. Some are more sick, other less so.

So why not settle for a solution where the individual employee get in part paid sick leave and the employers pay some of the salary for the sick days. This way it is a loss for both, but it is an arrangement that acknowledges that the relationship between an employer and employee is usually more than a day to day exchange of money and time. You can also start with an unpaid qualifying day for the employee to weed out the long weekends, as the company often do risk aspects of the whole business, rather than only lost work time from an individual.

All in all, I'm in favour of a mandatory basic solution, which of course companies and employees then can make additions to through insurance, company rules, etc.

cheers porphy

[Platapus]

In my company, we have unlimited Sick time. No one abuses it. The rational is that if the company treats us like professionals, the employees act like professionals.

Even with unlimited Sick time, we still have to force people to go home when they is illin.

I guess different companies have different operating environments.

[mookiemookie]

Most large corporations already have some form of paid time off. So guess who this hits?

Small businesses, of course. And who's going to pay for the business owner's sick days?

If it's mandated that EVERY business has paid sick time then EVERYONE gets hit equally, so save me the "think of the small businesses!" sob story. They are on equal footing if the law is applied equally across all businesses. I have no problem taking away the competitive advantage of a business owner who runs a sweatshop and forces their sick employees to work to save a buck.

From a pragmatic standpoint, paid sick leave helps stop the spread of sickness. At my job (where we get paid sick days) you're considered pretty rude if you come in to the office while you're sick. From a business owner's standpoint, ask yourself if you'd rather have one employee out sick and have to pay them, or have 20 employees all sick and at work because they need the money, but inefficient because you didn't want to pay them. Not to mention the societal costs at large of spreading an infectious illness amongst workers, then amongst workers families, friends, etc. That business owner is imposing his cost savings for not paying the employee to stay home on the rest of society by causing the infection of and lowering the efficiency of a multitude of people who otherwise may not have been exposed to illness.

In today's world of laptop computers, VPNs, teleconferencing and ubiquitous internet access, I'm sure the employee could do their critical job tasks from home while preventing the spread of disease. The net loss in productivity would be negligible, and it wouldn't increase costs because you would have been paying those people to come in to work anyways.

UnderseaLcpl, you bring up the idea of making us uncompetitive on the world stage. In reality, mandating sick leave would align us with the rest of the world:

http://imgur.com/5Cc6E.jpg

The dark blue line is mandated sick leave, the light blue is mandated sick days.

So therefore I don't see how this would put us on unequal footing with the rest of the world.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I knew you'd come up with something good, Mark:up:
It would appear that I misstated myself. I should have said "less competitive" rather than "uncompetitive". It seems that we are behind the curve in mandated sick leave, at least.

Still, I don't consider that a reason to implement such a system. It could hardly be argued that mandating sick days is somehow going to increase productivity. As you said yourself, the days could be used to wait for the AC repairman or whatever, and I think that is how most people will use them. That's certainly the case in a lot of companies with mandated benefits of that nature, as I said before.

If it's mandated that EVERY business has paid sick time then EVERYONE gets hit equally, so save me the "think of the small businesses!" sob story. They are on equal footing if the law is applied equally across all businesses. I have no problem taking away the competitive advantage of a business owner who runs a sweatshop and forces their sick employees to work to save a buck.

I also disagree with this. For a small business with only a handful of employees, mandated sick leave is more harmful than to large companies, as Aramike said. Small businesses typically don't maintain a reserve of employees or temps to fill in, and unexpected absences may neccessitate paying overtime to other employees to fill the gaps, not to mention continuing to pay the absent employee. For a business that nets only 100k anually, that adds up fast.

Furthermore, if you're working in a sweatshop, odds are you're not making much anyway, and so already qualify for many exsisting compensation benefits, including Federal unemployment and various types of medical assistance. Even if you lose your lousy job, there are plenty of others out there, even now.

The more I look at this, the more I think it is just another case of wanting something for nothing, and passing the expense along to people who actually produce things and make responsible fiscal decisions. Every fool on the planet knows that you should save money for unexpected circumstances and not live beyond your means. Just because they choose not to do so doesn't mean that all employers should have to pay for their short-sightedness.

[Aramike]

Okay, so if this is about fairness...

Who guarantees the financial well-being of the business owner when his health becomes an issue? Or is he just screwed by the fact that he decided to create jobs rather than simply take one?