March 4, 2009

Paid sick days coalition unveiled; Business lobby gives its usual knee-jerk response

Posted at 2:58 PM by Rob Schofield

A new and broad coalition of nonprofit advocates held a press event at the General Assembly this morning to launch its campaign to guarantee that all workers in North Carolina (or at least almost all of them anyway) have access to paid sick days. It’s a fairly remarkable fact that as many as 1.6 million people (42% of the state’s workforce) do not get a single paid sick day from their employer. You can get a lot more relevant facts about the campaign and the issue by going here.

Though today’s event was a well-covered success (look for video here on The Progressive Pulse shortly), it was a disappointment to see a cadre of business lobbyists out in force outside the press room distributing misinformation. Predictably, the lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business was there to claim that a sick days requirement would impose some kind of new and onerous burden on employers.

What’s so frustrating about this, of course, is that if these people actually stopped for just a moment and used just a little common sense, they’d realize that paid sick days will actually help employers and their bottom lines by lowering employer health cares costs, increasing employee productivity, loyalty and retention and reducing overall employee absences.

Think about it for a minute: What’s the simplest and fastest way to keep your entire workforce from getting sick?

Uh, could it be allowing the first person in the shop who comes down with the flu to stay the heck out of the office when they’re contagious??!! Even if one takes it as a given that simple human decency has no role in employer-employee relations, you’d think this obvious, common sense conclusion would be enough to stifle the absurd objections raised by NFIB.

Alas, it looks as if the new coalition will have to fight the business lobbyists at every corner on this one. Let’s hope that in the near future at least some thoughtful employers break with their ideology-driven lobbying groups.

Now, wouldn’t that be a helpful trend for North Carolina?

Learn more about the campaign by visiting www.ncsickdays.org.

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6 Comments

6 Comments Add yours »

Show Us The Jobs 4 Mar 2009 3:08 pm

it would be nice to have a F/T job to have paid sick leave from. Im one of the 750,000 + North Carolinians who is looking but cannot find.

Maybe some of this ’stimulus’ money from DC will create some NEW good government jobs here in NC a la WPA, CCC, etc.

Rob Schofield 4 Mar 2009 3:11 pm

I hear ya’. Let’s hope it helps sparks the creation of all kinds of new jobs — public and private.

IBXer 4 Mar 2009 3:35 pm

It is a simple mathmatical fact that the state of North Carolina will pay more out in coming years than it will receive from the “stimulus” package. North Carolina is a net looser in this fiasco. The notion that it will create jobs here would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing.

Rob Schofield 4 Mar 2009 4:02 pm

We’ll report that to the highway construction crews hired with the stim money and tell them that they don’t really have jobs.

IBXer 5 Mar 2009 2:56 pm

It will create a hand full of construction jobs at the expense of countless other jobs in many different fields. We will be paying for the debt this administration is piling up for decades. That burden will be carried on the shoulders of those who can’t find work because businesses are being over taxed.

Rob Schofield 5 Mar 2009 3:18 pm

Ah, the old “Hoover knew best” argument.

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