Last week, MomsRising.org along with over a hundred New Yorkers rolled on City Hall for a stroller brigade in support of working parents and their children. They came from all over the city with babies in tow to deliver more than 50,000 petitions and a message to New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn: Bring the paid sick days legislation to a vote!
Why were these babies and mamas fired up? There’s a bill sitting in the New York City Council with 37 sponsors that would allow more than a million New Yorkers to earn paid time off to use when they are sick or to take care of sick child, spouse or parent. We know we have the votes to move that bill and there is overwhelming public support for it but Speaker Quinn is holding it hostage.
Earned sick days make good public health policy. When people go to work sick or send their children to school sick, they spread germs and other people get sick. What’s more, people who don’t have earned sick days are more likely to be in jobs where they are in regular contact with other people, with children, with older adults or with food. Almost 90% of workers handling food, and 43% of workers in close contact with children and the elderly do not have paid sick time.
It’s not hard to do the math there.
Earned sick days are good for the economy too! They would help to reduce health care costs, reduce the spread of contagion,
protect people’s jobs and financialsecurity, and boost businesses’ productivity. Seattle, San Francisco, and Connecticut have successfully enacted paid sick days policies. And in San Francisco, a recent survey has shown that paid sick days have NOT had the negative consequences opponents feared, the policy was easier to implement than anticipated, and employees are not abusing the system – in fact, employees are taking less than half the days they have earned.
No worker should ever, ever have to choose between losing a day’s pay and staying home to recuperate from illness or to care for a sick child. A majority of the New York City Council members recognize this and are prepared to vote to support earned sick days. Speaker Quinn’s refusal to allow a vote on this bill is unfair to the more than a million New York workers, many of them moms, who have to face the impossible choice between their families’ health and their jobs.
Join the call and sign today! http://action.momsrising.org/sign/NYC_paidsickdays/
This blog was originally posted on Momsrising.org.
