Taking U.S. pulse on paid sick leave

USA TODAY, November 11, 2007

By Dennis Cauchon

Natalie Ferrell-Albright was a bank teller when her daughter had a severe asthma attack. When she called work to say her daughter had to go to the hospital, the Cincinnati woman was told her sick days applied only to her, not her children.

The single mom did what she had to do and took her daughter to the hospital, but the incident still rankles her five years later. "I know too many people who are forced to choose between their health or their family and a paycheck," says Ferrell-Albright, 53, who has since left her bank job.

Ferrell-Albright is on one side of an emerging debate as an effort to make paid sick leave a right for every worker gains ground in state legislatures and Congress. Proposals have been introduced in Ohio and at least 12 other states, and work is underway to put the issue on the ballot in several states next November.

Congress has started holding hearings on the issue. Democratic presidential front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have spoken out in favor of the idea.

On the other side of the issue is Mike Kovach, 52, of Youngstown, Ohio, who has built a successful 80-employee business repairing heavy industrial equipment in a shrinking regional economy.

He wasn't happy when he heard about a proposed state law that would force him to provide paid sick leave to his workers. For every $1 spent on wages, he already pays another 43 cents for vacation, health care and other benefits.

"Customers are squeezing us for more productivity," says Kovach, who founded City Machine Technologies in 1985. "We're investing in technology to stay competitive. Our prices are going down. There are only so many dollars here."

Currently, 43% of the nation's private workforce — about 50 million employees — don't get paid when they call in sick, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says.

"This issue is gaining momentum because paid sick leave seems as American as apple pie and baseball," says Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a group that promotes added benefits for workers.

No state has passed a mandatory sick leave law yet. Business groups worry that the idea will become a new hot-button issue — like raising the minimum wage — that has popular appeal but hidden costs.

"It has great emotional appeal," says Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council. "There is a movement getting behind this, and we think it's going to pass in certain states."

Legislatures weighing paid sick leave include Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Virginia, Ness' group says.

So far, early support for mandatory paid sick leave laws has come in liberal jurisdictions. Last November, San Francisco voters approved the nation's first mandatory paid sick leave law. The law — providing about eight paid sick days a year for full-time workers — took effect in February. The Washington, D.C., city council is considering a similar law. Massachusetts legislators held a hearing on a proposal last week.

Connecticut's state Senate approved paid sick leave in May, but the measure died in the House. "We have a great chance next year because it's an election year," says state Sen. Edith Prague, a Democrat.

Business groups say mandatory paid sick leave could force cuts in other benefits such as health care or vacation. "Paid sick leave isn't free," says Ty Pine, legislative director of the National Federation of Independent Business in Ohio. "Show me where the law guarantees the business owner extra revenue to cover the costs."

The proposed laws generally require five to seven sick days annually for full-time workers at firms that employ 25 or more people.

"Paid sick leave would actually save business money, not cost them money," says Dale Butland of the Coalition for Healthy Families, a group of labor and other organizations gathering signatures to put the issue on the Ohio ballot.

He says paid sick leave would reduce the spread of illness caused by workers who can't afford to miss a paycheck. "If every other industrialized country can do it and remain competitive, there's no reason America can't," he says.

Workers who don't have paid sick leave often work part time or at restaurants, retail stores and construction sites.

At Kovach's Youngstown firm, sick leave would make it hard to quickly repair equipment in factories, he says. "We need people on a moment's notice, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he says. "If you offer paid sick leave, people are going to take it."

His company offers vacation — one week after a year, then an additional day for every year at the company — and handles health problems on a case-by-case basis.

"It doesn't sound like much to add sick leave, but, in reality, it means paying overtime and double time to other workers," he says.