Sick Leave Legislation Under Consideration

A bit of good news for those of you who are among the many Americans whose employers don't offer sick days: there are a few pieces of legislation that have been introduced over the last few months to try to rectify that.

The most recent one – just tabled last week – is the Emergency Influenza Containment Act, temporary legislation that would provide up to five paid sick days for full- or part-timers who have been sent home or have been ordered to remain home by their employer because of a contagious illness, such as H1N1.

The bill isn't perfect, though....There are some obvious loopholes that could negate the whole point of having the law in the first place (read the article to find out more). The House Education and Labor Committee is supposed to hold a hearing on the legislation during the week of November 16.

There's also the Healthy Families Act (originally introduced in 2005 and then re-introduced this year), which, if passed, would require businesses with 15 or more employees to provide up to seven days of paid sick leave each year.

If you live in San Francisco, Milwaukee or Washington, D.C., you're in luck: those cities already have laws requiring paid sick leave.

I must say, though: all of this is fine, as long as you don't have a boss who would threaten or bully you, even in subtle ways, because you chose to stay at home sick and not spread your germs. Unfortunately, I've already had a few readers write in and tell me some of their horror stories (which, frankly, made me ill).

Seriously, if employers expect workers to never get sick, or to come into work and function at 100 percent when they've got the flu, why don't they just hire robots? Seems as though that's all they want (at least some of them).