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STAY
home if you’re sick. That’s the best way to stop the
spread of contagious diseases, such as influenza,
tuberculosis and gastrointestinal viruses. Besides, you
can’t do your job capably or safely if you don’t feel
well. But many Americans simply tough it out when ill,
going to work with pain, cramps, headaches, fevers or
worse. Often, they have no choice. As many as 43 percent
of American workers in private industry don’t have paid
sick days, according to 2007 data from the federal
government. If they call in sick, they lose their pay
and, sometimes, their jobs.
That
number has risen over the years, part of a larger trend
to cut back on sick leave. Among workers who do still
have the once-venerable benefit, many have found their
days reduced or lumped together as part of their
vacation time. The United States—unique among
industrialized countries—doesn’t mandate a minimal
number of paid sick days for workers.
“Sick
time is changing,” said Kim Stattner, an expert on
absence management for Hewitt Associates, an
international company that provides human resources
programs and consulting. “The practices and designs are
not as generous as they once were.”
As
employers cut back, however, lawmakers are stepping in,
with the support of labor organizations and health
officials. In May, legislation cleared the California
Assembly that would allow workers to earn one hour of
paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. The bill,
called Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces (AB 2716),
has been sent to the Senate, where its prospects for
passage are considered fair.
As many
as 10 other states are also pondering paid-sick-day
laws, including Ohio, where residents will likely vote
in November on a ballot initiative requiring a minimum
number of paid sick days.
Kathleen
Martinez, 43, is typical of the kind of worker who is
most likely to lack paid-sick days. The Antioch,
California, woman works part-time at two low-paying
jobs, one as a pizza cook at a grocery store and another
at a restaurant. Neither job provides paid sick days and
one employer gives her “negative points” for being out
sick. If she accrues too many negative points, she says,
she’ll get fired.
Martinez
was fired from her last job because she took all five of
her allotted paid-sick days plus some unpaid days when
her daughter had recurrent ear infections and required
surgery to insert ear tubes. She is a single parent and
also cares for her mother, who has heart and lung
diseases, and her grandmother, 87.
She said
she can’t afford to lose another job: “I go to work when
I have the flu. My bones can be aching, but I am so
worried about getting negative points.”
But
Martinez discovered she has gynecological cancer and
will take a month off to recover from a recent surgery.
Even if she doesn’t lose her jobs, she worries about the
loss in pay.
“I rob
Peter to pay Paul,” she said. “Whenever I’m sick or my
daughter or relatives are sick, it takes me a couple of
months to catch up with the bills.”
An
estimated 79 percent of low-wage workers and 80 percent
of part-time workers do not have paid sick time,
according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research,
a Washington, D.C-based organization that based its
analysis on US Department of Labor statistics. The
demand for workers in the service sector has grown
substantially over the last two decades, but those jobs
are much less likely to carry sick pay, said Jeremy
Smith, a lobbyist for the California Labor Federation.
Fewer workers today are covered by union contracts,
which traditionally dictate paid sick time for their
members, he adds.
Small
companies are also chipping away at the benefit,
Stattner said. “Some employers look to generate savings
from cutting sick time because they are trying to
mitigate the cost increase of medical benefits,” she
said.
Those
employers and many others will resist legislation to
mandate a certain number of paid-sick days, said Peter
Ronza, an advisor on employee compensation for the
Society for Human Resource Management.
“They
still love their people, but they can’t afford the kind
of benefits that 3M or Best Buy or General Motors can
afford,” he said. “California is saying, ‘OK, we need to
have this as a paid benefit.’ But it turns out to be
something small businesses can’t afford.”
Many
employers have already begun to tinker with sick days.
The brokerage giant Merrill Lynch raised eyebrows last
year when it sliced guaranteed sick days for employees
from 40 to three. According to Stattner, most companies
that provide paid-sick days offer about 10 a year.
(Employees of the federal government get 13 a year.)
Fewer companies than in past years allow employees to
carry over unused sick days from one year to the next,
but many provide a short-term disability benefit
featuring partial pay for six to eight weeks. Moreover,
some companies allow employees to purchase long-term
disability insurance policies.
“Today,
sick time is intended for casual or incidental
absences,” Stattner said. “The short-term disability is
for more serious health conditions requiring multiple
weeks away from the office.”
Employers are also instituting plans that lump vacation,
sick and personal days in one pool, a benefit referred
to as “paid time off.” A survey by Hewitt showed that 30
percent of employers offered paid time off in 2006, up
from 18 percent in 2000.
The idea
behind general paid time off is that employees will be
more judicious in how they use sick time. But such pools
often don’t reflect the realities of real life, Ronza
said. “What if you get sick and you use up all your time
in the same year that you have a wedding planned?”
Others
view the time-off pools as a sneaky way to reduce paid
sick days and ease the managerial headache of keeping
track of employees’ separate balances of sick, personal
and vacation days. When employers offer 15 days of time
off instead of two weeks of vacation and two weeks of
sick time, for example, the reduced number of sick days
can slip by relatively unnoticed.
“It’s a
way of cutting back on paid time off,” says Vicky
Lovell, director of employment and work and life
programs for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
“Employers don’t have to care why someone is out.”
Considering that humans have employed other humans since
the days of the ancient Romans, it’s odd that no one
really has a good grasp of what constitutes a fair
number of sick days a year, Ronza said. According to the
2004 National Health Interview Survey, a
government-conducted poll, the average worker takes off
3.9 days a year for their own illnesses or injuries and
1.3 days to care for ill family members.
But,
Stattner said: “A paid-time-off bank breaks down those
barriers. If you need 20 days off because you have an
ill child, you have access to 20 days. You may have to
use up some of your vacation time, but the person gets
to choose.”
With
more emphasis on preventive care as a means to reduce
the long-term cost of health care, a few bold employers
are offering employees one or two days a year
specifically for prevention, Stattner said. Others
reward employees who don’t use paid-sick days by
exchanging them for vacation time. Surveys show that
nearly half of all workers each year do not miss a
single day of work due to illness.
“The
lack of utilizing sick time is a reflection of the
employee’s dedication to the job,” she says.
“Organizations do place value on those behaviors.”
*****
How to Call in Sick: Do’s and Don’ts
NEED to
call in sick? There are right and wrong ways to let your
boss know you’re a no-show. Most people instinctively
know the best way to communicate with their particular
supervisor and workplace.
But if
your illness has caused a sudden loss of common sense,
follow these tips compiled from human resources experts
and other sources.
§
Do speak
to your supervisor directly, if possible. Sending an
e-mail is a tip-off of possible fakery.
§
Don’t
attempt to fake sounding ill by using the old tricks:
speaking on the phone while lying in bed or bent over
the toilet. Remember, if you were an actor, you’d have a
SAG card.
§
Do call
in as early in the day as possible to give your
supervisor time to plan the day without you.
§
Don’t
give your supervisor all the gory details of your
illness, pain and suffering. It smacks of exaggeration.
Make the call short and to the point.
§
Do make
the call yourself.
§
Don’t
have your spouse, child or—worse—mother make the call
for you unless you are hospitalized and intubated. Be a
grown-up.
§
Do
apologize for the inconvenience to your employer.
§
Don’t
call from a baseball game, bar, airport or other
questionable venue.
§
Do call
in sick when you’re feeling miserable, need to see a
doctor, are contagious or can’t think straight.
§
Don’t go
to work looking like a walking carcass.
§
Do get a
doctor’s note if your illness requires medical treatment
and a specified length of time off.
§
Don’t
use “feminine problems” as an excuse—especially if
you’re not a woman.
§
Do use
sunscreen if you take a sick day to go to the beach.
§
Don’t
tell your boss you’ll try to be there after lunch. It
won’t happen.
§
Do know
how your supervisor feels about employees taking sick
days.
§
Don’t
call in sick on too many Mondays or Fridays. It will
damage your credibility. |
