9to5 News

We are writing to urge your support of the Healthy Families Act (H.R. 2460/ S. 1152), a

groundbreaking piece of legislation that would guarantee workers up to seven paid sick

days a year to recover from short-term illness, to care for a sick family member, for routine

medical care or to seek assistance related to domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

In seeking ways to meet pay-as-you-go requirements for priority legislation, Members of

Congress and the Administration are considering cutting future monthly benefit amounts

in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) to

fund a variety of other priorities. While these proposals may have merit in their own right,

they should not be advanced at the expense of hungry families. We urge you to

categorically reject efforts to cut SNAP benefits and take SNAP funding for other

purposes.

Julia James

 http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/archives/2010/08/paid-sick-days.html

 

I live in a small house with eight friends, six chickens and a puppy. When one of us gets sick, many others follow suit. (So far, we've avoided any cross-species bugs.)

 

Over the last few weeks, a nasty cold made the rounds, prompting an informal discussion about when it's appropriate to miss work: If you're not feeling well, is it best for some general good to stay home or trudge to the office, red nose and handkerchief in tow?

 

That question, of course, assumes an individual has the luxury of considering the greater good. Unfortunately, one-third of U.S. workers (link to .pdf) don't have paid sick leave - and that's a situation that MomsRising would like to see remedied.

 

Over the last few weeks, the online grassroots organization has hosted a blogging event on the need for a national paid sick days policy. Thirty posts written by policy analysts, members of Congress, and yes, moms, provide the rationale - in economic, public health and social justice terms. Economist Robert Drago, PhD, argues:

 

Research suggest that lost working time for employees who either have colds themselves or stay at home to care for children with colds costs the economy $20b in lost output per year. This estimation demonstrates a shortsighted approach to contagious diseases that also afflicts many employers: they recognize that an ill employee at work is more productive than the same ill employee at home (excepting telecommuters), while ignoring the fact that the productivity of other employees suffers as a disease spreads.