Lack of Sick Leave Legislation Is Getting Old, and So Are Your Parents

Until recently, many of us twentysomethings believed that we were invincible. Alas, in these tough economic times, some of us have succumbed-- gracefully, no doubt-- to that catchy "last one hired, first one fired" refrain. Some of our smugness may be gone, but at least we still have our dashing good looks and our health, right?

But what about our parents? I've recently begun thinking about mine. My mom walks religiously and eats organic, darling. Dad is a 61-year-old trapped in a 45-year-old's body. He hasn't touched a drop of liquor in 20 years (had a lifetime share back in the Russian Motherland), doesn't smoke or even drink coffee, and can be seen darting back and forth in his pool year-round. Unfortunately, absolutely none of these enviable habits guarantee that my parents will remain healthy in the years to come.

The difficult realization that my parents are mere mortals made my heart skip a beat when I learned about Melton v. Farmers Insurance Group, a November 2008 U.S. District Court decision which ruled that Farmers was not required to grant an employee's request to work from home in order to care for her cancer-stricken mother. The employee that brought the suit, Shawna Melton, is a single-mother with a young child. Melton's request to work from home was denied and eventually she was fired for excessive absenteeism. Melton sued her employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and Oklahoma public policy. The court ruled that though they were "not unmoved" by the plaintiff's situation, the company was not guilty of discrimination under those laws.

Whatever the legal intricacies of this particular case, there is a greater social issue at play. In the United States, there is no law that requires employers to provide employees with sick days, let alone allow employees to take sick days to care for ill family members. This is not the case in other rich countries: of the top 20 economies in the world, the United States is the only one that does not have a national standard for paid sick days. As a result, nearly half of all full-time private sector employees in the U.S. get no paid sick days at all.

Why doesn't our system of social protections help us deal with events as inevitable and uncontrollable as the illness of our children and parents? Why should we have to sue--sometimes unsuccessfully--to take care of our families, in a country that so vehemently espouses the importance of "family values"?

To my mind, the best course of action for Farmers would have been to grant Ms. Melton's request to work from home (they had, after all, previously allowed an employee to work from home to care for his disabled wife. Is it really fair to leave these decisions up to managers?) Farmers would have gained a more productive and eternally loyal employee--and probably lowered overhead office costs to boot. But how far should the law go in regulating employer actions? Can you really legislate flexibility?

Certainly, employers should be free to run their companies as they see fit. But what if they prefer not to hire Asians or lesbians or balding men? We have laws against that. (Okay, maybe not for bald guys.) Laws are extremely important in our society; companies fear lawsuits and jurisprudence often shapes our norms. We cannot always rely on lawsuits, however, to solve our social problems. For one thing, the legal process is costly and time-consuming. Besides, in some cases laws have not kept up with dramatic changes in our society, such as the rise of single-parent families (see Melton v. Farmers).

If we really want change, we have to demand more responsive legislation and far more responsive employers. In 2005, Senator Edward Kennedy introduced the Healthy Families Act, federal legislation that would have given most workers the right to seven paid sick days a year to take care of their medical needs and the medical needs of their families. The bill was never voted on.

The political dillydallying on sick leave is getting old--and so are our parents, I'm afraid. At the end of the day, if I was in the position of having to care for a sick parent I would want the option of leave and of an alternative work arrangement-- wouldn't you? Your parents may be superhuman in your eyes, but at some point they will need your help. Will your employer stand in the way?

A Peaceful Revolution is a blog about innovative ideas to strengthen America's families through public policies, business practices, and cultural change. Done in collaboration with MomsRising.org, read a new post here each week.

 

Comments

[SelenicMagick]

11:38 AM on 04/21/2009

My parents are very dead however, this is one of the reasons that I absolutely LOVE my job.

5 years ago my mother was dying from Glioblasto­ma Multiforme (the SAME cancer that Ted Kennedy has) and when she got sick enough so that she needed assistance taking care of herself I looked at my boss and said " I will understand if my job isn't still here when I get back BUT my mother is dying and I need to be there. I will be back when I can, I will work what hours I can telecommut­ing BUT mom and my kids come first for the next few months."

I didn't walk into the office for a YEAR between taking care of first my mother and then her estate. On the other hand, according to my boss, I was AS productive telecommut­ing as I had been sitting in the office. Today I MIGHT see the inside of my office once a month for a couple of hours. My clients have an easier time reaching me than they ever did when I worked in the office, I get more done in less time and as an added benefit my children SEE me more than they have at any time in the last 10 years AND I am still doing the SAME job that I was doing when I was sitting in an office 50 hours a week.

[laxdado2]

12:57 PM on 04/20/2009

Sure, make it even harder to run a business. It should be if you come in, you get paid. If not, go somewere else. In my clubs it also goes as to how valuable you are to me, or the manager at that club. The better you are as a trainer or worker, the more I will work with you. If you just want to come in and collect a paycheck for minimal work, you get minimal cooperatio­n from me.

[CanisLatrans]

12:22 PM on 04/20/2009

Unfortunat­ely, these days, the power is with the Businesses­. Don't like the lack of sick leave? Fine-- here's your pink slip and now you can have all the time you want. When the job is announced, the companies know they'll have 1,000 people lined up to choose from in this economy.

Pro-worker policies only get passed when the economy is good, people can be picky about jobs, and the labor pool is short. Then companies have to treat workers like human beings in order to get and keep people. As soon as times are bad, though, they slash benefits and we're back at square one.

[euthman]

10:13 AM on 04/20/2009

Considerin­g the environmen­tal and financial costs of commuting alongside the striking improvemen­ts in telecommun­ications, working from home should be encouraged by way of public policy, perhaps including tax breaks for companies who employ telecommut­ers.

That said, I am reluctant to force employers to accede to demands from workers that they work from home. As an employer myself, I have seen gross abuses of paid and unpaid time off by unscrupulo­us employees. You simply can't account for an employee's time if they are not there for you to supervise them. Now, for some tasks, you can supervise productivi­ty (number of widgets assembled, forms filled out, sales closed per day, etc), but not all jobs involve piecework. In some critical tasks, attention to quality is so important that it would be reckless to pay workers by the piece; they would have too much incentive to cut corners. Yet other jobs require close interactio­n among employees and between employees and supervisor­s. There is such diversity in the job marketplac­e that forcing everyone through the same forge of entitlemen­t would not be in the best interest of maintainin­g the American worker's preeminenc­e in productivi­ty.

[AntsyAmerican]

12:39 PM on 04/20/2009

All you've admitted is that you don't know how to manage employees by other standard than face time.

[vippy]

08:01 AM on 04/20/2009

The US needs to progress like any other civilized nation and care for its people like Europe does.
Why do we need the largest Defense Budget on this globe, more than all of the other countries combined. No wonder there is nothing left for its people. Would be nice if we get adequate sick leave,
paid vacation, along with more than a week, and enough bonus to afford a real vacation. After all,
we work just as hard.

[Donkslayer]

08:13 AM on 04/20/2009

You know, I'm very moderate politicall­y, but I can see lots of pro-univer­sal healthcare arguments, etc that are very justifiabl­e.

But then comes the slipperty slope....

"I'm entitled to time off from work to care for my (child/spo­use/parent­/dog) with no penalty."

"I'm entitled to lots of vacation time. Not only am I entitled to vacation time, I'm entitled to enough money to pay for a "real" vacation."

etc etc

Wow, we sure are going to be a nation of efficient, productive­, successful people after you people get your hands on it.

[ReverseUniversal]

10:28 AM on 04/20/2009

Average Number of Vacation Days Around the World
Italy 42 days
France 37 days
Germany 35 days
UK 28 days
Canada 26 days
Japan 25 days
USA 13 days

GDP per capita rank for those countries
Italy 23
France 15
Germany 18
United Kingdom 20
Canada 16
Japan 24
USA 17

So, from that data, several countries that are able to take 2-3 times more vacation than the USA have very similar or better GDP per capita. Several also have Universal health care. All of those countries also have a longer average life expectancy­. This leaves me wondering what makes you so sure we'd be less efficient, productive­, or successful if we took more vacation.