President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
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State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
June 17, 2011 04:58 PM UTC
9 Comments
Who pays for it?
This would be a required job benefit under the proposal, unless I’m reading something wrong.
If employers have to provide an additional benefit that costs them money, typically they make up for it in one of two ways…
1. Offer less in salaries and other benefits to cover the added expense
2. Raise prices
I don’t see businesses being willing to offer lower profit margins to cover an additional expense.
Will it result in raised prices? If fewer people come into work sick and there is less transmission of disease it may actually result in lower costs to employers through the other workers not getting sick. Right now you as a consumer are paying for low wage workers coming into work sick and making coworkers and YOU sick. How much productivity are you and your employer losing by people not staying home when sick?
Nothing spreads flu, strep and all that fun stuff like people going to work sick and sending their kids to school sick. That raises the cost of employer provided insurance among other considerations. Employers and consumers both benefit from a healthier work force.
Of course the best and cheapest would be replacing employer based insurance with universal single payer healthcare. Like they have in the rest of the civilized world, most often with private insurer options in the mix. See Costa Rica’s. Rush was smart to threaten to go there if we passed “socialized medicine” here. Theirs is terrific and super popular with all classes.
I think it is critical to keeping the whole office healthy. It is cheaper for a business to offer it.
Even though I offer the benefit, I still have to tell people to go home. The people who abuse it, tend to be bad employees in other areas–areas that I can use as non discriminatory termination cause. Beside we are talking about sick leave not FMLA or S/L disability (which is why you should offer at least LD insurance).
Good employees want to work and you have to keep them from doing so (sending them home, telling them not to call in, check email or bring their computer while on vacation, making them take at least 1 week–preferably 2 week–vacations). I see benefits in keeping your workers fresh and healthy and building redundancy (why I like forcing 2 week vacations).
I am a bad offender myself and have empowered my staff by telling them to send me home when I am sick and telling them they can call me anytime day or night, but I don’t respond to emails on the weekends (which encourages them to build their own work/life boundaries).
For those that say ‘but that is amongst professionals’ I say no it is not–it applies to uneducated support staff as well. Good employees are better if you treat them well and the poisonous ones can’t ferment revolt.
As WPFG points out, workers with paid sick days are more satisfied and loyal, especially important to companies in lower-wage industries where turnover is high. And anyone who has run a business knows that employee turnover is expensive – recruiting, interviewing and training workers can cost anywhere from 25 to 200% of annual compensation.
Workers with paid sick leave are more productive, too. When they stay home, they recover from illness and are able to get back working at full productivity faster than if they report to work sick. And BC makes a great point, too – contagious illnesses that spread to co-workers multiply the lost productivity. Don’t know about you, but I appreciate it when my colleagues keep their stomach flu to themselves!
A little factiod: “Presenteeism” (when employees work sick) is estimated to cost our national economy $62 billion more per year than worker absences.
In cities like San Francisco and Washington, D.C. businesses have found that despite their fears, employees do not take advantage of them and typically take far fewer sick days, and with the reduced turnover find that their bottom lines don’t take a hit. So while change is scary, this one is business-positive.
We do 15 days combined off/year for everyone. And the big problem is getting people to actually take the time off. I had one employee where I disabled his login while he was on vacation so he actually didn’t work.
I am always amazed when it requires laws to get companies to do what is in their self interest.
As you note, when the sick come to work they make a lot of other people sick and that costs everybody. If parents can use a paid sick day or two to keep sick kids at home instead of sending them to school or day care, all children and their families and the public that pays healthcare costs will benefit.