Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Employers who don’t give their workers paid sick leave may end up helping worsen the H1N1 pandemic in the United States. It is estimated that about 40% of all private-sector employees do not receive paid sick days, forcing those who come down with the flu to show up at work to avoid losing income.
“For people who are really caught on a weekly income, if they can’t make a go of it, they might say, ‘I’m desperate. I’m going to do what I have to do, and I’m going into work even though I’m sick,’” Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy at Harvard, told The New York Times.
Exacerbating the problem are those employers who offer sick leave but also have policies that punish workers for using this benefit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has tried to encourage businesses to adopt “flexible leave policies” to allow workers with the flu to stay home and not face punitive actions.
About 5.7 million Americans so far have come down with the H1N1 flu, according to the CDC.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Lack of Paid Sick Days May Worsen Flu Pandemic (by Steven Greenhouse, New York Times)
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