Connecticut might be closer to passing a bill that would require employers to provide paid sick leave, an effort that is similar to a bill proposed in the fall by Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd. But the Senate is tied up with bigger bills.
The Connecticut Business and Industry Association helped stop the bill the last time it passed committee, and, as Daniel Schwartz at the Connecticut Employment Law Blog notes, the bill might not have a better chance in the state General Assembly this time around.
It's easy to see why businesses would be against such a bill, since at first blush it looks like a higher cost, but it's hard to see how legislators can justify voting against it. As Shani O. Hilton wrote on the blog in the fall, only 40 percent of private-sector workers have paid sick leave. And as Jodie Levin-Epstein wrote a few years ago, more flexible workplaces, including those that allow sick leave, are better for businesses too. Employers like to think of low-income workers as expendable, but it costs money to hire and train new employees. Sick leave would also prevent illnesses from spreading, which seems especially important in the food-service industry.
New York City is re-introducing a similar bill soon. The idea may not have the urgency it did in the fall, when swine flu was a big public-health concern, but it's nice to see states and municipalities considering it in the absence of a public-health concern, since the focus really should be for the low-income workers who can't take care of themselves, their health, and their families now.
-- Monica Potts
