Maine news, sports, weather | Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine

Legislators let down working families on paid sick leave

Sarah Standiford

The discussion about Senate President Mitchell's paid sick leave bill was not a theoretical one. More than 200,000 Maine people lack paid sick days from work. For those without this protection, a single case of the flu can mean staying home and losing needed pay -- or even a job. Or, it means going to work sick. This puts colleagues and customers at risk.

As proponents of the paid sick days bill, and coordinator of the 39-member Work and Family Coalition, the Maine Women's Lobby is extremely disappointed that the Labor Committee refused to stand up for working people by passing the bill as written.

To be sure, it's a major blow to Maine workers and their families. In a time of economic hardship, Maine voters (nearly 90 percent of whom support enacting paid sick days) will see this legislative session conclude without a single protection against job loss?

Experience and data demonstrate that paid sick days are good for businesses, workers, their families and the public health. But, given the Labor Committee's failure to advance the paid sick days bill, we support Senate President Mitchell's amendment that will, at the very least, ensure that people are not fired for doing exactly what public health officials tell them to do -- stay home when they're sick or keep a sick child home.

Losing pay is bad enough. Losing your entire future livelihood is unimaginable.

That's why it's stunning that the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel suggested (March 22, 2010) that a job-protection measure "wouldn't help anyone."

On the contrary, these are the women and men for whom such a protection is crucial:

For Monique, who called her supervisor at a fast-food franchise in Portland to explain that her 2-year-old had the flu, so she couldn't come to work that day. The supervisor told her to come in anyway. When she refused, the supervisor cut her hours from 40 per week to 15 and demoted her to mopping floors and cleaning toilets.

For an employee at a manufacturing facility in western Maine who was faced with a sick husband and a critically ill child in the hospital -- at the same time. Instead of allowing her unpaid sick leave, her employer told her to come back to work now or lose her job entirely.

For the hundreds of workers who earn paid sick days, but are penalized for using them.

This includes workers who earn paid sick days at Poland Spring, Sodexo, Wal-Mart, and Fed Ex but receive an "occurrence" or demerit upon using each paid sick day. After one or more occurrences, workers may be put at risk of written reprimands, negative reviews, even termination.

In fact, according to a poll by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, 1 out of every 6 workers have either lost a job or been told they would lose their job if they took time off because of personal or family illness.

There are real consequences of failure to enact such a policy.. which is why it's so strange that the MaineToday Media insists that a paid sick day policy is necessary, but should only be achieved through federal action.

This argument is naive.

History tells us that state-level policy action is necessary for Congress to act. Congress understands state legislatures to be incubators of policy change, which can then be replicated at the federal level. Consider family and medical leave: Maine was among the first to enact a family and medical leave law, demonstrating that such a policy was affordable and feasible -- five years before Congress took action. Such was also the case with recent increases to the minimum wage and updates to the unemployment insurance system.

In fact, many of the tenets of health care reform just approved by Congress were pulled directly from state policy. So, saying that federal policy is required, but that state lawmakers should not weigh in, is simply a recipe for inaction.

Inaction is not an option for Maine workers who are one case of the flu away from losing their jobs. For their sakes and on behalf of the majority of voters who are mobilizing to support basic labor standards to protect workers when illness strikes, Maine lawmakers must start promoting policies that meet the needs of working families.

Sarah Standiford is executive director of the Maine Women's Lobby, which has been advocating on behalf of Maine women and girls since 1978. For more information, visit www.mainewomen.org.