California’s bill that would require all employers to pay for sick leave would have a positive impact on public health and reduce spread of diseases like the flu to co-workers and customers, according to a new study by Human Impact Partners in Oakland and San Francisco Department of Health.
The study’s release is timed to the next hearing of the paid sick leave mandate, AB 2716 by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco. The bill is scheduled to come before the Senate Appropriations Committee next week. It has passed the Assembly and one Senate committee.
If passed and signed into law, it would be the first paid sick leave mandate in the nation.
The report, A Health Impact Assessment of the California Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008, focuses on the health benefits of workers staying home when 
sick, not the financial aspects.
It notes that 5.4 million California workers, about 39%, don’t have paid sick leave. Those who do have paid sick leave are more likely to take time off from work and go to the doctor, said Rajiv Bhatia (left) of the San Francisco Department of Public Health and consultant to Human Impact Partners.
San Francisco had mandated paid sick leave for a year, but Bhatia said it’s too early to assess the impact that law has had on businesses or jobs.
According to the new study:
- Parents who had paid sick leave were five times more likely to take time off work to care for sick children than those who didn’t have paid leave.
- 42% of workers who didn’t have paid sick leave didn’t take time off work when sick.
- 28% of workers who did have paid sick leave didn’t take time off work when sick.
California already has a law prohibiting restaurant employees from working when sick, but Bhatia implied that it is largely ignored in an industry in which 70% of workers don’t have paid sick leave.
“Lack of paid sick days is a disincentive to taking time off,” he said.
Jody Heymann (right), founding director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University, said that California businesses can remain competitive even if they 
pay for sick leave because 145 foreign countries have paid sick leave and nine of the 10 countries ranked most competitive have guaranteed paid sick leave.
“In countries with fewer sick days, the employers pay for them. In countries that give more days, a month or more, the cost is covered by a social insurance system,” she said.
Opponents have said mandatory paid sick leave would eliminate 370,000 jobs and cost $4.6 billion in direct expenses and $59.3 billion in lost sales.
Heymann called those projections “theoretical.”
Human Impact Partners was founded in 2006 and receives funding from various groups that promote social change.
OTHER STORIES:
- Mandatory paid sick leave would cost businesses $22 billion
- California could lose 370,000 jobs if paid sick leave passes
- Appeals court expands paid sick leave
- O.C. businesswoman launches opposition to paid sick leave
- Jobless can save big bucks buying own health insurance
- Does your company follow the law on work breaks?
I’m sick of sick people coming to work and making me sick. Wax that puppy.
B.A.L.O.N.E.Y!
These academics who have never had to meet a payroll or haven’t received a paycheck have not faced the issue with small business. Small business make up about 85% of the number of companies in the US and create about 50% of all new jobs in the US according to a decade old study by the Department of Commerce. Small business is big business.
The problem for small business owners is simple here in California. First this is an expensive place to do business. While minimum wage is not the highest in the US it is close to the top. Worker’s Comp coverage costs more here too. Real estate whether leased or owned is expensive.
I’ve paid for health insurance for my employees and paid them for sick days too. We have looked back and found that our health insurance is not used by our employees much when they are sick since they have a co-pay of $35 per doctors visit and a $30 deductible for prescriptions but they do stay home or take their sick days as “I am feeling so good I’m not coming in days”.
While it may be theoretical that we will lose hundreds of thousand of jobs at a cost of $22 billion we only need to look back to the 1990’s to see the mass exodus of manufacturing business from California, then the jump of unemployment, then people leaving California because the couldn’t find work here and then the dip in real estate prices.
All of us will pay for this as business must raise prices for services to off set this social increase in cost of doing business.
Of course these congressmen and senators and educators and researchers will still get paid on a regular basis but small business owners have to make up the ever increasing costs by cutting jobs and lowering pay rates just to stay even. None of them could run a small business. I wonder how much money was paid by Californians to Human Impact Partners for this study?
As for Ms Heymann saying it works in other countries to make her case is like your child saying to you “other kids get to do it” as an objection to your telling them “no”.
Rick said it perfectly. Between absurd personal liabilities (most small business owners are required to personally guarantee things like leases), heavy regulation , high costs and taxes on EVERYTHING, there is little time to get any work done and little money left to make it worth the liability and trouble. We have chosen another state to relocate to within the next year and bid adieu to CA.
About once a month I stop by Ziba Beauty at South Coast Plaza and I have my eyebrows threaded for nine dollars. It takes about five minutes, and I leave the girl a two dollar tip for a total of 11 dollars.
I’m just saying.
I agree if you work in an office you need paid sick time. I used to not receive any, for about 10 years and then my last two jobs I did get it. now I think to myself, that was insane that they didn’t give us any paid sick time. five days, which is all that the average employer who provides paid sick time gives, is really not too much to ask and certainly no great expense in the grand scheme of things. when you figure that (my estimate) probably 20-30% of all sick days are lost at the end of the year, it appears even cheaper for the company. and isn’t having healthy, productive employees worth it? the guy who said his medical plan was too expensive and people didn’t use it when they are sick, that’s a separate (though related) issue which needs to be looked at. besides, I go to the doctor when I’m sick about 85% of the time but seeing the doctor when you have a common old is completely pointless and a waste of everyone’s time and money involved. that’s what Target or Rite Aid is for.
“In countries with fewer sick days, the employers pay for them. ” I don’t understand this quote at all. this makes almost no sense and the woman makes no point to show how it’s relevant.
bottom line is if you work minimum wage or do fast food, you’re not going to get paid sick leave. mandating it for these jobs makes no sense. having laws to protect the public health from these folks and enforcing them does make sense.
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How come the countries that have paid sick leave also have some of the highest per capita income? If it is a “job” killer wouldn’t they be doing really badly income wise?