Will Obama make paid sick days mandatory?
May 21, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Hiring, Retention, Special Report
If the feds have their way, your absence policies will soon get a lot more complicated.
On March 18, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced the Healthy Families Act (HFA) to the House of Representatives. If passed, the law will require companies with at least 15 employees to provide up to seven days of paid sick leave a year.
Both full- and part-time workers would be eligible. They’d earn an hour of leave for every 30 they work, accruing up to 56 hours in a 12-month period. Employees would start accruing leave as soon as they’re hired and could use it after 60 days.
One troubling aspect for HR and managers: Covering for absent employees would be solely the company’s responsibility — the HFA says you can’t make workers find a replacement before using leave.
Like FMLA, employees can use the time to care for themselves or a family member. However, the HFA is less strict than the FMLA.”Family member” includes any blood relative and anyone whose relationship with the employee is “the equivalent of a family relationship.”
Employers may also require medical certification and could be sued for retaliating against an employee who uses sick days.
What about your current policies?
The bill states that employers already meeting the requirements of the law won’t have to offer additional leave. However, experts say it’s not clear what this means for employers with all-purpose PTO plans.
What chance does the bill have of passing? In the House, the HFA has 101 co-sponsors and could find favor among the Democrat majority. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) is expected to introduce a companion bill in the Senate soon.
Similar legislation was proposed in 2007 but was stalled, partially due to a veto threat from President Bush. However, Obama has vocally supported the bill and will sign it if it’s passed by Congress.
We’ll keep you posted.
You can read the text of the bill here.
Tags: benefits, Healthy Families Act, Obama, paid sick leave
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 am
This could be another hardship for small businesses!
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Wow, I don’t know how I feel about this. As an employee, I think it’s great because we don’t get any sick leave at my current job. Our boss is of the mind that “you know you’re going to get sick at some point, so you should be putting away savings or using your vacation time for that”, even though a good percentage of the employees don’t get vacation time and many live paycheck to paycheck right now.
But, as the person in charge of HR, it sound like it could be a headache!
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
CT is currently struggling with a version of this exact issue – paid sick leave for both full and part time employees – current version – 1 hour of paid sick time for each 40 hours worked. The most recent revision to the CT bill exempts municipalities from this requirement! The legislators acknowledge the financial burden that this would place on state, city and town budgets, yet they expect businesses to take on this additional expense. Very discouraging.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Thank goodness – this isn’t like the older version where it would have to have been added on top of what is already in place.
This is the worst time to force this on businesses.
This is going to cost our company a small fortune – as a staffing service we are going to have to find a way to track 3-5 thousand temporary employees that are on again and off again quite a bit. Not to mention the effect on our internal payroll.
Our company has taken 10% paycuts accross the board including our execs and we are looking at changing the paid time off benefits as well. If we have to add more paid time off it will either cause more layoffs or more paycuts –
Either way this will be very bad for the economy! They should wait until the economy is much stronger and unemployment rates are back to normal – otherwise they should expect unemployment to remain higher for longer.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
will just have to take away from vacation time, companies provide a job that requires work. it is not just another facet of welfare…….what happened to “an honest days work for an honest days pay?”
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
We currently have six paid sick days (paid off if not used, even for exempts), 12 holidays and vacation ranging from 2 to 4 weeks. We are not really small, (a little over 600 employees), but if we add another sick day, it would cost us many thousands of dollars. We would rethink our payoff policy and perhaps offer less holidays. A very small number of our employees use all of their time in short order, then have unlimited unpaid leaves (actually paid for by SDI and PFL in California). Planning and scheduling becomes a nightmare.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
If they are considering this new paid sick days – then it should be limited to be used only for their own illness – not to care for another “relative.” Additionally, if the goal is to help employees in time of illness, then wouldn’t generic Paid Time Off (PTO) time qualify and not require that time be designated as “Sick Time.” This “sick-time” allotment will encourage employees to be dishonest claiming an absence due to illness rather than just personal paid time off. Doesn’t this breed dishonesty?
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
This new policy will erase the structure and guidelines required for the previously passed FMLA which requires employment for at least 1 year and 1250 hours.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
This will certainly have a negative effect on vacation. I would think many employers will simply lower the amount of earned vacation time to make up the difference.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
This will definitely be a hardship for small businesses. We currently have a very generous personal time off policy with no questions asked. I would like to know if our personal time off (which is now 6 days) would be in addition to the 7 mandatory days. Will we be able to change our 6 days personal to 6 days sick and then add 1. I didn’t see anything in the bill that addresses that issue. The employees that now take advantage of the 6 days off would get a field day and the rest of the employees will be left to pick up the pieces. We also have a very generous vacation policy in addition to the 6 personal days. I don’t believe the government should be telling us how to run our businesses. This is too much like socialism. I agree with Jeanette that planning becomes a nightmare. Companies end up paying other employees overtime just to get all of the work done and will cost a small fortune.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I think this is a GREAT idea. Provided of course that companies can deduct the total cost of the employees’ extra paid days off directly from their corporate tax liability every year. Or how about from their individual state UC premiums? Or how about no S.S taxes paid by either employer or employee for those days. Or a combination thereof? Sheesh! Did any of these people who come up with this stuff ever have to make or even administer a payroll? Or have to replace the productivity that the absence of employees at just about any level of any business? This is really getting ridiculous!!!!!!
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Glad we only have 2 employees!
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I know I’m kind of simple minded about this but if all employers treated their employees with respect we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
There are employers who make their employees feel like they are stealing when they need UNPAID time off when they are sick, when their children are sick, when their parents are sick or dying.
We were blessed with FML because employers fired long term employees who needed to have time off for medical issues….Surprise – sorry you’re sick, now you’re unemployed AND you’ve lost your medical coverage. There was no COBRA back then.
We have unions because employers did not treat their workers fairly.
I understand that it is expensive to give paid time off. If your profits are so low that it’ll put you out of business (or if you aren’t willing to share your profits with the folks that helped you earn them) then maybe it’s time to take a hard look at your business.
Jeannette: I’d say you could lose a paid holiday without too much grief. Your vacation policy seems quite adequate. It’s nice to pay for unused sick days but you could reduce that to pay half for unused.
Something for all employers to think about: When flu season comes around and your employee decides to come to work with H1N1 because to miss the day of pay means they can’t put food on the table, you’ll be paying the price. With the way it spreads you’re really going to find yourself short handed. I don’t mean to be an alarmist – it’s not deadly – but it will sure sideline a work force in short order if it gets the chance.
May 26th, 2009 at 9:13 am
I have one word to say to Pat – BRAVO!
May 26th, 2009 at 10:25 am
To Ed~
Coming from the HR department at a staffing company, I will be interested to see if the law (if put into place) will address temporary workers or not, or if this is something that will be mandatory for all temp workers too. You’re correct, it would be a nightmare to track whether or not a temporary worker receives the sick time. So often many temp employees of ours come and go whenever they feel, so it may be near impossible to say whether or not they would technically receive the sick time. I’ll be interested to learn more!
May 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Amy ~
The very similar item in Milwaukee that is being ruled on any day now applies to ALL employees – So, every 30 hours a temp employee works will equal 1 hour of paid sick time accrued.
I wonder if this will make us change our policy about paying out paid benefits in 4 or 8 hour increments? That will be the real nightmare. I’d be willing to bet that every 30 hours a huge protion of temp workers will “go home sick” an hour early on Fridays.
May 26th, 2009 at 11:16 am
You’re probably right on Ed!! That bad thing about that though is, if we have temp employees leaving because they are “sick” when they receive their alloted time to use, the client companies will not want to do business with us if we keep having employees call in sick or last minute call ins, or even leaving early. It would definitely be a huge burden on our company, both from the administrative standpoint and financial standpoint.
May 26th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I hope everybody is enjoying the “CHANGE WE CAN LIVE WITH” because it is driving this country into the ground. The socialist direction we are headed on must be stopped. Pat is correct, employers should treat thier employees with respect and offer some paid time off. However, if a company does not offer paid time they should not have any employees becasue nobody should CHOOSE to work there. If, someone does CHOOSE to work there, they can’t cry “it’s not fair” and ask the government to fix it. The government (Fed, State, Local) should NEVER tell a company or business that it must off paid time off. The market, the FREE market must make this determination. This is a country that was founded on the right to CHOOSE. This is being taken away and one day they will take something away that you want and it will be too late.
May 26th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Well said, Andy! I agree whole-heartedly. The decision-making process is being taken away from business owners. The freedom to choose that this country was founded on is being taken away piece by piece…decision by decision.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
I also agree that the free market should be allowed to work. If an employer chooses not to offer paid sick time, then it may end up with no employees, or less-qualified people than an employer who offers better benefits. Also, some companies and/or individuals prefer to get more in base/take-home pay than have paid sick days, etc. For example, if you could work at a place that pays $12.00/hour and gives 5 sick days a year or work at a job that pays $12.50/hour with no paid sick days which would you choose? The employer and employee should have the freedom to choose what works best for them. I work for a local government, so even though my base pay may not be as high as if I worked for a private company, the leave and pension benefits are better. But this is a choice that I get to choose to make and a choice that others should be allowed to make (employees and employers) without the government dictating requirements.