Wednesday, June 20, 2007 04:12 am
A sick policy
In the U.S., youd be lucky to work like a beaver

Untitled Document
If your bosses ever say that you should be working
like a beaver — take ’em up on it. Even the most eager beavers
only work about five hours a day, mostly at a fairly leisurely pace, and
they take frequent vacations from work. Oh, and another thing: You’ll
never see beavers working when they’re sick.
Contrast this natural pace with the grind of most
American workers, many of whom have two or three jobs, put in 60-hour
weeks, rarely get vacations, and often go to work sick. Sick? Here’s
a hidden reality behind America’s fabulously rich economy: Nearly
half of our country’s full-time private-sector workers get no paid
sick days at all. You get sick, you still go to work or lose that
day’s pay.
It’s mostly the lowest-paid workers who are
denied the basic human decency of sick days — the very workers least
able to afford missing a day’s pay. Take the low-wage restaurant
industry, for example. Eighty-six percent of food-service workers get no
days off for illness.
Think about that in terms of your own health. Do you
really want feverish restaurant employees coughing into the chili and
sneezing into the schnitzel?
Yet, restaurant industry lobbyists are going all out
to kill a bill that would ensure seven paid sick days a year to most
workers. It’s not like this is a lavish benefit — it’s a
modest statement of common decency.
But decency doesn’t seem to be in the ethical
framework of industry leaders. For example, a spokeswoman for the Cracker
Barrel chain dismisses the need, saying that employees can schedule doctor
appointments “at times when they are not working.”
Show me a beaver that would be that cold.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, columnist, and author.
Show me a beaver that would be that cold.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, columnist, and author.
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