Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Coping with Swine Flu
Recent alerts and guidelines that have been issued in
anticipation of the resurgence of the H1N1 flu (or swine flu) – including the
highest alert level from the World Health Organization in June – have American
families scrambling to figure out how to deal with the threat of a serious
disease or pandemic. This is particularly true for the more than 40 percent of
private sector workers – and 75 percent of low-wage workers – who do not have
paid sick leave.
“Workers without paid sick days lose wages if they stay
home, and many workers risk losing their jobs. As a result, workers who lack
paid sick time are more likely to go to work with a communicable illness, and
parents who cannot stay home with a sick child are more likely to send sick
children to school or day care,” said Kevin P. Miller, Senior Research
Associate for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) based in
Washington, DC. “Workers who work in direct contact with the public, such as
restaurant workers, child care workers, and hotel employees, are among the
least likely to have paid sick days.”
A survey by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the
University of Chicago, commissioned by the Foundation last year, found that 68
percent of people who did not have paid sick days responded “yes” when asked, “Have
you ever had to go to work when you were sick with a contagious illness like
the flu or a viral infection?” That was a significantly higher affirmative
response than among those who were eligible for paid sick days.
“Government leaders and public health officials stress the
importance of staying home when you’re sick to avoid spreading the H1N1 virus,”
notes Deborah Leff, president of the Public Welfare Foundation. “But most
low-income American workers lack even one day of paid sick leave, so the
economic realities undermine public health concerns.”
In Milwaukee, WI, where more than 3,000 people have had the
H1N1 flu, and only 47 percent of workers are entitled to paid sick days, many
working parents have already had to make hard decisions that could have
compromised public health, according to Public Welfare Foundation grantee 9to5.
Sangita
Nayak, lead organizer for the group in Milwaukee, reported in a piece recently
published by the Progressive Media Project that back in May, when 20,000
children were shut out of schools with less than a day’s notice, at least one woman
continued to work at her temp job despite thinking that she had caught H1N1
from her child. Another woman who was sick with a fever for more than 10 days
continued to work for fear of losing her fast-food job. And a third woman lost essential
income when her child came down with H1N1 and the entire family was quarantined
by the health department. Without paid sick days, she was forced to work double
shifts the rest of the month to make sure the family’s bills were covered.
“We
should not have to choose between a pandemic and a paycheck,” said Nayak.
Last
November, Milwaukee
voters passed a referendum that would provide workers up to nine paid sick days
a year, depending on the number of hours worked and the size of the business.
Despite a nearly 70 percent favorable vote, the referendum is being challenged
in court by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce, a prominent
local business group. At the federal level, Congress is considering the Healthy
Families Act, which would provide up to seven paid sick days annually to
workers in businesses with 15 employees or more.
On
August 19, 2009, top government officials, including Homeland Security Chief Janet
Napolitano and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, said at a
press conference that workers with flu symptoms should be encouraged to stay
home and remain there at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever. The
most recent guidance for the upcoming flu season from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and other federal agencies suggests that the nation’s
130,000 public and private schools remain open, but that those among the
approximately 55 million children in grades K-12 who have the flu or flu-like symptoms
should stay home. That advice can be followed more easily when working parents
can use paid sick days to remain home and care for their children.
It’s
also an important consideration since younger people, including working parents
and their young children, have been more susceptible to the recent strain of
H1N1 flu than the elderly. Dr. Tom W. Smith, a Senior Fellow at NORC and the director
of last year’s survey, finds that there is a definite relationship between paid
sick days and individual and general well-being. “The survey shows that when
you don’t have paid sick days, you are more likely to go to work when you don’t
feel well -- and that clearly has a negative impact on public health,” he said.
For additional information,
please go to:
Institute for Women’s Policy Research
9to5: National Association of Working Women
National Partnership for Women & Families
Family Values at Work
MomsRising
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