Flu Scare Highlights Need for Paid Sick Days as a Health Policy
Across the country, public health officials are mobilizing to prevent the further spread of the H1N1 flu epidemic. As a fundamental part of their response, they are instructing people who get sick to stay home from work or school to keep from infecting others.
For almost 6 million California workers, this is easier said than done. These workers, who do not earn any paid sick days, are asked to make an incredibly difficult choice – between following medical advice or losing pay, between keeping a job and potentially infecting others.
The right to paid sick days is more than an employment benefit – it is, fundamentally, a health equity issue. Workers in low-wage jobs are the least likely to have paid sick days – in California 70% of workers in the accommodation and food service industries do not have the right to accrue paid sick days, and the majority of California’s Latino workers (56%) do not have paid sick days, compared to 38% of White workers.
Whether we are trying to prevent the H1N1 flu, seasonal influenza, or food borne disease outbreaks in restaurants, guaranteeing the right of all workers to earn and use paid sick days is a commonsense public health strategy – for individual workers, their families, and for all Americans.
The United States remains alone among developed and prosperous Western nations in not guaranteeing this basic right for its workers. If we are serious about improving the health of all Americans we must look past our traditional silos and incorporate health in all policies. Paid sick days for all is a good place to start.
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We at Human Impact Partners completely agree with Ellen’s points. Last year, with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, we conducted a health impact assessment of the proposed paid sick day legislation in California and we released an update to that assessment recently. The assessment finds that having such a policy would improve the health of all Californians. From our summary: “The best available public health evidence demonstrates that the California Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008 would have significant positive public health impacts. Guaranteed paid sick days would help reduce the spread of flu; protect the public from diseases carried by sick workers in restaurants and in long-term care facilities; prevent hunger and homelessness among sick low-income workers; and enable workers to stay home when they are sick or when they need to care for a sick dependent. We would all be better off if this commonsense workplace practice were to become law.” The full report and summary can be found at http://www.humanimpact.org/PSD.