WASHINGTON — Against the backdrop of the H1N1 flu pandemic,
congressional Democrats are pushing for emergency sick leave legislation and
using the crisis to garner support for a wider-ranging bill, both of which they
say would help prevent a more rapid spread of the virus by mandating that
employers provide workers paid time off.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairing a health subcommittee
hearing Tuesday morning, said requiring businesses that employ 15 or more
people to offer seven paid days off a year would end a “dangerous”
choice “between staying healthy and making ends meet.”
Some conservatives argue that Democrats are using a public
health crisis as momentum for faulty legislation that would harm businesses by
inviting worker abuse.
“It’s pretty obvious that they’re trying to use the
swine flu as a P.R. boost for something they wanted to do anyway and that was
not moving forward because of its already existing flaws,” said James
Sherk, Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
In addition to championing the Healthy Families Act, which
has seen already been pushed unsuccessfully in Congress, Dodd announced that he
will soon introduce emergency sick leave legislation focused more specifically
on the H1N1 flu outbreak. A similar bill was put forward last week in the House
by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. It would provide up to five paid sick days to
employees whose employers send them home with a contagious virus for up to two
years.
There is currently no requirement for businesses of any size
to provide paid sick leave. The Healthy Families Act would create a broad
definition of sick leave and force businesses to pay for an hour of sick time
for every 30 hours worked.
In the hearing Tuesday, Dodd presented Desiree Rosado, a
Connecticut mother and special-education assistant, to bolster his case for the
bill. Rosado testified that each of her three young children recently caught
the H1N1 flu and she was forced to miss two weeks of work.
“I get no sick pay, so my paycheck for that period was
almost nothing,” Rosado said.
A Republican senatorial aide, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said it was odd to see both
the Bureau of Labor and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the
same hearing room.
“You don’t usually see labor issues being mixed in with
emerging health problems,” he said. “This is taking a public health
crisis to help grease the skids.”
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
