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Should Sick Leave Be Mandatory?
By Marc Tracy
MSNBC gets two folks together to discuss the newly proposed federal bill, which we covered last week, that would mandate paid sick days in response to the H1N1 epidemic. The MSNBC got two people to debate it: one, from the American Public Health Association, is in favor; the other, from prominent (and conservative) small-business lobby the National Federation of Independent Business, is opposed. You can watch it below.
What is striking is what the two sides agree on. Both agree that all businesses ought to have mechanisms in place, whether it's paid sick leave or easy telecommuting, that encourage employees who feel ill not to come to the office and therefore risk contaminating their co-workers. And both agree that, in a perfect world, all businesses would voluntarily adopt such mechanisms, and there would therefore be no need for a legal mandate. It's just that the doctor places greater emphasis on the public-health angle (while noting that it's also in businesses' interests), and the NFIB spokesperson puts greater emphasis on businesses' independence (while noting that most of them do this anyway. For our part, we'd only note that the bill, as currently conceived, exempts businesses with under 15 employees. So maybe it itself is more of a compromise than people realize?
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Comments (0)November 11, 2009 4:02 PM
