Head over to www.everyonegetssick.org and join the online rally for paid sick days.
Because you shouldn't have to choose between taking care of your sick kid and having the money to pay your rent. And from a public health perspective, you really don't want the people who are preparing and serving your food, or loading your groceries at the supermarket, to be dragging themselves into work even though they're sick because they can't afford to stay home.
If you live in DC, check out www.dcsneezes.org and give your city councilmember a call. They're voting on the DC Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act on Tuesday.
And if you're in Illinois, read this post to learn how you can help.
Here's the NY Times editorial, Catching Up on Family Values, from earlier this week.
This has been a huge factor in determining where I teach. I made the choice of less pay for the flexibility of paid sick days. Another college I taught at for a semester had such a stringent absence policy I just could not commit myself to that after having a child. I had a 100% attendance record teaching 3 years until my child was born.
It disturbs me that the work environment would rather a person come into work sick than take a day and get better. It would prevent more people from getting sick - commonsense.
Posted by: Christine | February 29, 2008 at 11:39 PM