Business owners agree: Paid sick days help them turn a profit

We’ve pointed out before that a minimum paid sick days standard is good for businesses. It helps keep employees productive, workplaces healthy and businesses profitable – not to mention preserve public health by ensuring sick workers don’t infect others. Well guess what? More than a few business owners agree.

In a recent article published in thehill.com, two small business owners in Texas write about why their employees don’t just need workplace flexibility – they also need a minimum standard of paid sick time:

It’s essential that flexibility also includes paid time off. We want workers to stay home when they’re sick and not infect others – and they can’t if the time isn’t paid, or if taking off routinely results in discipline.

It is reasonable to assume people (and their children) will get sick. If employees are unable to earn paid sick days, they are far more likely to go to work sick, infecting others employees, customers, and lowering workplace productivity. These business owners understand that providing paid sick days doesn’t just help keep their employees productive at work. It keeps them out of the workplace when they are ill, giving them time to recover without losing a paycheck.

These two in Texas aren’t alone. At KPMG, flexible work hours allow workers to be productive employees, without sacrificing their duties as parents or caregivers. And in San Francisco, which adopted a paid sick days requirement in 2007, both the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association have noted that earned sick time had not caused undue hardships for members.  The Executive Director of the Restaurant Association has even gone as far as to say, “paid sick days ‘is the best public policy for the least cost.'”

It’s not enough for these to be voluntary standards, as those small business owners in Texas tell us:

We appreciate the government’s role educating employers and encouraging best practices. But it also must set reasonable labor standards, such as paid sick days and family leave insurance plans. That gives employers like us a level playing field. And it guarantees a minimum of protection to ALL workers.

Allowing all workers  to take a day off without penalty when they or they children get sick can save the business thousands of dollars in lost productivity, wages, and health care costs. Paid sick days help workers and businesses alike maintain economic stability, especially during times of economic uncertainty.

Do you want to pick up the flu along with your prescription? Didn’t think so.

In the coast-to-coast battle over whether or not we should have laws requiring paid sick days, Kate Karpilow has two things to tell you. One, she has someone at home with congestive heart failure – so picking up the flu from a pharmacy clerk is a really bad idea. And two, if you’re worried about the economic implications of a minimum paid sick days standard, you shouldn’t be:

Business groups claim that paid sick days laws are “job killers” that will lead to exorbitant business expenses, job losses and damage to the economy.

In California, the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation claims a statewide paid sick days requirement would result in the loss of 370,000 jobs and would cost businesses $63.9 billion in expenses and lost sales.

A business group called the Partnership for New York City recently released a study predicting a paid sick days ordinance would cost Big Apple businesses at least $789 million.

Proponents of paid sick days critique these scary statistics as inflated and methodologically flawed estimates and point to the real life success in San Francisco where a paid sick days ordinance has been operating for nearly four years.

Who’s right?

Kevin Westlye, Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, estimates that the cost of paid sick days for his members has been 40-45 cents an hour per employee, resulting in some “belt tightening” for restaurants and some minor shift changes for employees. But there have been no major lay-offs or restaurant closures attributed to paid sick days.

And, according to Westlye, there has been no rash of reports that employees are abusing the benefit, taking sick leave for sports events or social engagements.

Moreover, research by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy has shown that after adoption of the paid sick days ordinance, San Francisco County’s labor market performed better than surrounding counties that did not require leave.

Read the entire article here.

Maternity means low-income moms are hit by biggest wage losses

From the New York Times Economix Blog:

The Mama Grizzlies running for office this fall oppose increased government spending, including programs that could help parents balance paid employment with family work.

Perhaps increased economic inequality in the United States means that individuals running for office don’t have a very clear understanding of the problems facing people in different circumstances than their own. In particular, they don’t fully appreciate the difficulties many mothers face holding down difficult jobs while caring for young children.

You might assume that highly paid women suffer a bigger economic penalty than other women when they have a baby because, after all, they have more earnings to lose.

In a startling new look at the “motherhood penalty,” however, two sociologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Michelle J. Budig and Melissa J. Hodges, show that mothers with lower earnings suffer the biggest percentage loss in hourly wages.

More in the New York Times: Rich Mom, Poor Mom