The DMI Injustice Index: Can You Afford to Get Sick?
From the Drum Major Institute's 2008 Injustice Index on Paid Sick Leave:
Rank of “stay home when you are sick” on the list of Centers for Disease Control recommendations for preventing the flu: 2
Proportion of employees without paid sick leave who worry that taking time off when they are sick would jeopardize their job: 1 in 3
Percentage of employees without paid sick leave who say they cannot afford to take unpaid time off work when they become ill: 58
Number of countries that require employers to provide a week or more of paid sick leave annually: 136
Number of days of paid sick leave guaranteed by the United States: 0
Number of private sector employees in the U.S. without a single paid sick day at work: 46 million
Percentage of Americans who agree that employers should be required to provide paid sick days, according to a 2007 poll: 80
Proportion of U.S. employees who say they have contracted the flu virus from a sick co-worker: 3 in 10
Year in which Pope Gregory the Great urged his people to say "may God bless you" when a person sneezed to protect the blessed person from death by the bubonic plague: 580 CE
Year in which talk radio host Glenn Beck used Senator Barack Obama’s support for paid sick leave as evidence that “Democrats are communist”: 2008
Average lost productivity to businesses per employee per year when employees show up to work despite suffering from a respiratory infection: $133.84
Cost of one 18.6 oz. can of Campbell’s Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle Soup from FreshDirect, an online grocer: $2.69
Maximum number of hours the flu virus remains alive on an inanimate surface like a door knob, office desk or telephone: 8
Percentage of food and accommodation workers who don’t have paid sick leave: 86
Percentage of New York City restaurant workers who say they had gone to work sick: 52
Maximum number of points off a New York City Health Department restaurant inspection for the presence of a worker who “prepares food or handles utensil when ill with a disease transmissible by food:” 28
Number of points it takes to fail an inspection: 28
Number of well-baby check-ups the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for healthy children during the first year of life: 7
Number of workers who do not have paid leave to care for sick children or bring them to the doctor: 86 million
Odds that a woman living in poverty loses pay when she stays home from work to care for a sick child: 3 in 4
Proportion of the adult U.S. population who currently have some caregiving responsibilities for another adult, such as a disabled or elderly relative: 1 in 5
Chances that such caregivers will need to leave work early, arrive to work late or miss work to provide care: 3/5
Projected percentage increase in the number of U.S. residents who will be over age 65 – and may be more likely to require care—by 2030: 105.7
Original air date of the Cosby Show episode when Dr. Cliff Huxtable stayed home from work to take care of sick daughter Rudy: 12/13/1984
Date that San Francisco became the first place in the U.S. to require employers to provide all employees with paid sick leave: 2/5/2007
Date of the Drum Major Institute’s next Marketplace of Ideas event, on what New York and the country can learn from San Francisco’s paid sick leave policy: 5/28/08
For more on paid sick leave, check out the liveblog of the Marketplace of Ideas event and DMI's YouTube channel, which has clips from the event.
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Our corporate masters treat us like dogs. Worse, they make us believe we ARE dogs. If you are hungry and ask for food you are a communist. If you are sick and ask to see a doctor you are a communist. We the people need to open a giant can of whup ass. The oil companies, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the corporate media, THE REPUBLICANS. We are coming for YOU!
An incredibly important topic -- thanks, Ms Schlesinger!
Most of us Americans are complacent, secure in the knowledge we have employer-provided healthcare and such. Putting aside, for a moment, the shameful tendency to ignore others becuase "I got mine," they have no idea that many of their supposed healthcare "benefits" are illusory.
What good are benefits if you risk your job if you use them?
If you get a *really* serious illness or injury, do you *really* think your job is secure if you are out a week or more? And, as the writer mentioned, teh effective practic ein many places is you just can't take sick time ... period.
Another insidious undermining is the tendency of more and more companies to lump sick time and vacation time together into "Personal Time Off" (PTO) hours. This conveniently requires employees to subsidize their sick time with accumulated vacation hours. Want a vacation? Don't get sick!
I HAVE paid sick-days, and am frequently too worried about my job security to use them. I have no recourse if my boss decides to terminate me for any reason. It's messed up.
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