To: Ted Gaines (CA-1), Maria Elena Durazo (CA-24), Jerry Hill (CA-13), and Ricardo Lara (CA-33)
CA SENATE: Provide paid sick days to every CA worker to ensure healthy workplaces and healthy wor...
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We ask the CA Senate Appropriations Committee to pass the “Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2014" (AB 1522) and require employers to give employees at least three paid sick days a year. All workers deserve a healthy workplace, the opportunity to make ends meet when ill, and protection from losing their job if they’re sick.
Why is this important?
Roughly 33% of California’s workforce, nearly 6 million California workers, cannot take an hour off of work to care for themselves or a loved one who is sick without putting their pay or job in jeopardy. Workers without paid sick days must either work while sick or forego wages -- losing three days of pay can equate to a whole month’s worth grocery bill for a low-income family.
Public health is very much at risk when we force people to work while sick and expose customers, co-workers, and others to often very contagious illnesses. Additionally, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research shows that 1.3 million emergency room visits could be avoided if the patients had access to paid sick leave, giving them time to visit a doctor when they were sick.
Research shows that sick workers are roughly half as productive as healthy workers—a disparity that dwarfs the cost of three sick days per year. More than $160 billion is lost annually in our national economy because of low productivity when workers show up to work sick.
Nearly 23 percent of adults in the US report that they have lost a job or have been threatened with being fired for taking time off due to illness or to care for a sick family member.
In the recently released “Shriver Report,” more than 90 percent of single women said paid sick day reform was the most important policy that their employer could adopt to improve their lives.
Connecticut is currently the only state with a statewide law on sick days. The Center for Economic and Policy Research found 3 out of 4 employers in Connecticut said the law had a positive impact on business. Fifteen percent of employers said productivity increased and 30 percent said it resulted in increased morale.
AB 1522 creates a new workplace standard similar to minimum wage or the 8-hour workday. AB 1522 allows workers to seek redress for being cheated out of the sick days they earn.