Mandatory Sick Pay
 

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

congrats on your 999th post.:yeah:

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.

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

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.