by Mark Gruenberg

WASHINGTON (PAI)--Citing a new report on who paid sick leave would benefit, five Democratic lawmakers have renewed their push to enact paid sick leave legislation.

But at a March 10 press conference on the issue, none of them -- including sponsoring Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, both D-Conn. -- could say when the legislation will reach the House or Senate floor, much less President Obama’s desk.

“There is a difference between the families of yesteryear and the families of today,” said DeLauro.  “What is remarkable is how long it takes public policy to change to catch up to that.”

The Healthy Families Act would mandate any company employing at least 15 workers offer each worker an hour of paid sick leave yearly for every 30 hours a worker toils.  The congressional Joint Economic Committee’s staff report calculated passage of the law would raise the percentage of private sector workers who get paid sick leave from 61% now to just over 90%.   Some 89% of public workers have paid sick leave.

Most private workers who have paid sick leave are covered by union contracts.   

The change the legislation recognizes is the majority of families in the U.S. have two wage-earners -- and millions of private workplaces have no paid sick leave.  That means if one of the two wage-earners gets sick he or she must choose between getting paid and staying home to get well.

And often, that’s no choice.  Millions of workers, especially low-wage workers, can’t afford to stay home when they’re sick, DeLauro added.  The report adds data to back up DeLauro’s assertion:  Of the 30.3 million workers who would become newly eligible for paid sick leave, 14.7 million would be in the bottom 25% of all wage-earners.

It also said more than 40% of the newly eligible workers, a total of 13.3 million, are women.  Another 5.6 million are Latino workers and 3.9 million are African-American.  And three-fourths of food service workers lack paid sick leave, meaning they must come to work ill, while handling food.

Companies would also benefit, added Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., who was a human resources manager for 20 years before running for Congress.  That’s because right now, workers come to the job ill, and have lower productivity -- or they’re healthy but are worrying about sick family members, which also lowers efficiency.  

Her firm gave workers paid sick leave, Woolsey added, and gained an added benefit: “Their employer was there for them in time of need -- and they’ll be there for their employer in its time of need.”    

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