Is your Senator or Representative a leader on work-family issues?

Halfway through the 111th congressional session, recent headlines have focused almost exclusively on health care reform. But our elected officials have made progress on important work-family legislation as well:

  • The Healthy Families Act (House and Senate) has received overwhelming support. More than 125 Representative and Senators are co-sponsoring the legislation. The Act would provide a minimum amount of paid sick time to employees, so a routine illness doesn’t result in economic hardship. If passed, workers will no longer have to choose between their job and their family— ensuring economic insecurity isn’t just one flu season away.
  • The FIRST Act (Family Income to Respond to Significant Transitions) has 24 House co-sponsors in addition to its sponsor Rep. Lynn Woolsey. If passed, the bill would bolster existing paid leave programs – or fund new ones, like Washington’s Family Leave Insurance program. The FIRST Act helps states develop and implement paid paternal leave programs, as well as offer funding to cover care for a seriously-ill family member, injured service member or leave to recover from a worker’s own serious illness. These programs help workers during rare times of hardship, and offer benefits proven to strengthen economic security for individuals and businesses alike.

Take a moment to recognize those leaders who are putting families first by telling your elected official(s), in your own words, why their vote for working families earns your vote of confidence — and thank them for their support.

A list of sponsors and co-sponsors for both the Senate and House versions of the Healthy Families Act, as well as the FIRST Act (House only) is after the jump.

Continue reading “Is your Senator or Representative a leader on work-family issues?”

Paid Sick Days: Low income workers hit hardest

The U.S. is currently the only developed nation that does not require some paid sick leave for workers. Nearly 40 percent of private sector workers have no paid sick leave, including 78 percent of hotel workers and 85 percent of food service workers.

A survey last year by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that “68 percent of those not eligible for paid sick days said they had gone to work with a contagious illness like the flu.” As CAP Senior Fellow Ann O’Leary and Karen Kornbluh, a U.S. Representative to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, pointed out in The Shriver Report: A Women’s Nation Changes Everything, “too often, most low- and many moderate-wage workers cannot access even the minimum benefits provided to more highly paid workers.” And this is true of paid sick leave, as 88 percent of workers in the top 10 percent of wage earners have it, compared to just 22 percent of workers in the bottom 10.

“Hopefully, employers are doing the right thing and not disciplining workers who are out sick as a result of the flu,” wrote Center for American Progress Senior Economist Heather Boushey. “But there’s no penalty for employers who choose not to pay workers in this situation, or who refuse workers any time off at all.”

Paid Sick Days: Sick at work

When the first cases of the H1N1 virus (swine flu) were confirmed in America back in April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that sick individuals stay home from work or school.

“Influenza is thought to spread mainly person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people,” the CDC said. “If you get sick, CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.” However, for many Americans, staying home from work due to illness — or to care for a sick child — is an impossibility because of a lack of job-protected paid sick days.

The Healthy Families Act (HFA), which is also before Congress, would guarantee seven paid sick days per year to all workers at firms with 15 or more employees. “Paid sick days has always been a good, common sense idea, but, in light of the recent H1N1 epidemic, it has also become a necessary one,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), an HFAÂ sponsor. “Right when more and more workers are feeling economically vulnerable and afraid to even miss one workday, we face an extraordinarily serious health risk that spreads much more quickly if the sick do not stay at home.” November 10th, the Obama administration officially agreed, and endorsed the HFA.