Sick Days

    

WASHINGTON -- The shortage of flu vaccine this fall poses serious challenges for employers concerned about productivity, and for low-wage workers who don't have paid sick leave and can't afford to miss a day.

Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studies show that immunized workers have 44 percent fewer doctor visits during the flu season. That's one reason, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, why 60 percent of business organizations usually offer flu shots to their workers.

But with half the expected supply missing this fall, government health officials are telling workers they should stay home if they get the flu so the illness doesn't spread.
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Connie Smith says her manager gave her an ultimatum when she came down with the flu last January: Come to work sick or don't come back. So Smith, a store manager at a Popeyes in Milwaukee, worked her way through the 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift, coughing all over the crispy fried chicken, she recalls.

"She told me she didn't have nobody to replace me, and if I took the day off, I didn't have a job," Smith said. A doctor's note saying that she needed to take time off didn't matter, Smith said. "She still didn't let me take those days off. I was sneezing and vomiting."

John Brodersen, owner of the Milwaukee Popeyes, said, "The manager must have made a mistake" in Smith's case. "We don't pay anybody for sick days," he said. "But on the other hand, we don't require people to work if they are sick. That's our policy."
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The United States lags far behind most countries when it comes to time off for employees, be it sick leave, maternity leave, or absence to take care of a sick relative.

A study released this summer by Harvard University's Project on Global Working Families reported that 139 other countries provide paid leave for short- or long-term illnesses. And 117 of those nations guarantee workers a week or more of paid sick days per year. Meanwhile, at least 37 countries have policies guaranteeing parents some type of paid leave when their children are ill. The United States doesn't.

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