Question

Essay on a Contemporary Workplace Issue: Paid Sick Leave

For years, many reputable national organizations have advocated for a basic, national workplace standard regarding paid sick leave. They posit that while everyone gets ill from time-to-time, not all get the time at work to get better and recover from even the most common of sicknesses. To address this issue, the Healthy Families Act (“HFA”) has been introduced in the U.S. Congress several times over the years without success. The primary provisions of HFA would:

• Allow workers in businesses with 15 or more employees to earn up to seven job protected paid sick days each year to be used to recover from their own illnesses, access preventive care, provide care to a sick family member, or attend school meetings related to a child’s health condition or disability. Workers in businesses with fewer than 15 employees would earn up to seven job-protected unpaid sick days each year to be used for the same reasons, unless their employers choose to offer paid sick days.
• Allow workers who are survivors of domestic violence, stalking or sexual assault to use their paid sick days to recover or seek assistance related to an incident.
• Include a simple method for calculating accrued sick time. Workers would earn a minimum of one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to 56 hours (seven days) per year, unless the employer selects a higher limit.
• Allow employers to require certification if an employee uses more than three paid sick days in a row. For survivors of domestic violence, the certification may be from a law enforcement officer or survivor advocate.
• Allow employers to use their existing policies, as long as they meet the minimums set forth in the Healthy Families Act for time, types of use and method of use, and give employers flexibility as to how they define a “year” for the purposes of sick time accrual.

Assignment

Write an essay expressing your position on whether or not such legislation should become law. Explain the reason(s) for your position and support it with data and/or research from reputable resources.

Essay length and formatting requirements.

• Length: minimum 500 words; maximum 750 words

Answer 1

Sickness by nature is unplanned and contingent. Sickness does not come planned. It is modern reality that we have to accept. The Healthy Families Act's (HFA) failure to convert into a law shows the lack of humane nature in us. It shows the declining nature of humanity among our fellow countrymen. Most developed and some of the developing countries have started providing paid sick leaves to their employees long ago, creating pressure on our senate. Paid sick leaves as highlighted by HFA , is the need of the hour.

Many parents within the United States face the quandary of whether or not to require day without work from work to worry for themselves, their kids, or alternative loved one, understanding that their jobs might not be there upon come and that they can receive no financial gain throughout their leave.The Family and Medical Leave Act has not upraised this burden; it solely provides for unpaid leave.Four states and a number of other cities have enforced paid family and medical leave statutes with each workers and employers benefiting.

In light of the ever-growing number of states and local governments mandating paid sick leave requirements for private employers, some federal paid sick leave bills have been proposed. Some proponents have called for federal intervention to alleviate multijurisdictional employers from having to comply with a myriad of State and local laws – which are often different in requirement and operation. While a federal requirement could solve this administrative nightmare – giving employers the peace of mind of complying with just one set of rules and regulations – that federal standard would need to expressly preempt all State and local paid sick leave regulations. Every day, millions of Americans are forced to juggle work and family responsibilities. At the same time, U.S. policies have not kept pace with the needs of modern workers.

Without family-friendly work policies like paid sick days and paid family and medical leave, employees often find achieving a work-life balance to be a herculean task—and in many cases, a myth.Employees be protections that alter them to require care of themselves and their families as they attempt to try and do their best work for his or her employers.As Americans more and more discuss work-life policies, it's vital to grasp the nuances of paid sick days and paid family and medical leave.Paid sick days don't seem to be a substitute for paid family and medical leave or vice versa; operating families want each to stay financially stable.It is additionally necessary to separate proposals that might facilitate employees from people who function as political rhetoric.

Paid sick days, also known as earned sick days, refer to leave that workers can use for short-term medical needs such as a temporary illness or a dentist appointment.Workers usually earn paid sick time supported the amount of hours they work.They accrue time that they'll use for medical, family, force, stalking, or sexual assault reasons and that is usually capped at a maximum number of days or hours per year.Paid family and medical leave helps employees through longer-term, more serious medical or family challenges that require lengthier absences from work.Workers usually use this sort of leave program when vaginal birth or adoption, to get over a heavy health problem, or to care for an ill or elderly loved one.Paid family and medical leave, kind of like paid sick days, is gender neutral, so women and men are able to take the same amount of paid time off.

The variations between paid sick days and paid family and medical leave—as well because the complementary roles they play—can be seen by scrutiny 2 theoretic employees,Alexander and Samantha. Their families consider their incomes to create ends meet, so they want to take time off to care for their new babies without putting their jobs or financial stability at risk.Alexander has paid sick days and paid family and medical leave through his leader.He is able to use his paid family and medical leave to require day without work to adopt, care for, and bond along with his kid.Once back to figure, Alexander will be able to use his short-term paid sick days to take his child to necessary doctor’s appointments—or to attend his own.Not all parents are so lucky.Samantha does not have any paid leave.Without paid family and medical leave, she cannot afford to require quite some weeks’ unpaid day without work when childbirth; rather like one-quarter of yank mothers, she is back at work among period.4 and since Samantha doesn't have access to paid sick days, once back at work, she struggles to find time to go to the doctor for her own and her baby’s checkups.Samantha’s work attending and performance suffer as a result.

Millions of U.S.families face this painful reality on a day after day.Without paid sick days, workers are regularly forced to work when they should not.In 2015, chain edifice jalapeno pepper Mexican Grill gained infamy once its sick workers caused food borne health problem outbreaks.In response, Chipotle decided to protect its workers and the public health, announcing that it would begin to offer paid sick days to its employees in an effort to prevent future outbreaks. A recent study found that respiratory illness rates have slashed considerably in cities with paid sick days—by five.5 percent to 6.5 percent.

To meet the diverse needs of 21st century families—and to catch up with the overwhelming majority of countries around the world—U.S. policymakers need to create a national paid family and medical leave program and pass a law allowing workers to earn paid sick days.³² Proposals that are unlikely to affect much change, such as comp time or tax credits for businesses, are inadequate. Other policies would only benefit wealthy workers, such as personal care accounts. Ultimately, these policies do a disservice to hardworking employees and their families.

As the conversation around work-life policy continues to expand as lawmakers pass paid leave, Americans need to understand how paid sick days and paid family and medical leave work together to support working families. It is crucial that workers are able to detect which proposals are merely giving lip service to voters’ overwhelming support for comprehensive work-family policies and which proposals are truly likely to support employees.