America: The world’s real sweat shop?
As officials and the media keep telling people to stay home if they are sick, we forget about those that don’t have any sick leave. Quite the conundrum, huh? What if you don’t have any paid sick leave or better yet, what if your boss says you’ll be fired if you miss work?
Advocates for family-friendly policies point out that the U.S. is the only country out of the top 20 world economic powers with no federally mandated sick days and that 140 other countries have mandated sick days.
Ouch. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Is that what makes America great? That we offer the least to the people that need it the most? I’ve never had a job that did not have paid vacation, paid sick days, personal holidays or comp time. (I know plenty of y’all in the state employ that accrue months of comp time during the session.) That makes it easy for me to dismiss the point here because it doesn’t affect me. But, it does. Here’s a little dose of how.
A study by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center found that 68% of those without paid sick leave have gone to work with a contagious illness due to fear of losing their job. The jobs they are afraid to lose? Food service, hospitality, and child-care. Uhm…the very people that we don’t want to be sick!
Did you know that 48% of Americans have no paid sick leave at all? Swine flu or no swine flu…that’s embarrassing. Can’t we do better? Are 140 other countries taking better care of their citizens than we are?