There's a move afoot by US lawmakers to make it mandatory that employers provide employees with at least 7 paid sick days per year. The legislation called the Healthy Families Act, which would enable certain workers to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, for up to seven days a year. Workers could use this time to care for themselves or family members. With a catchy and fuzzy name like that, who could debate it, right? I understand the rationale for the push and I realize there are lousy employers out there who don't take care of employees who are in a time of need, but I thought that was what FMLA was for. The examples of justification for the proposal I've seen in the media reports reflect the hardships that employees have been enduring when their budgets don't allow for the time off unpaid. Not that they're being fired for being sick, but that they don't have it in their budget. If what equates to say, a 3% pay cut (7 days unpaid) in a given year pushes your family over the edge, perhaps Congress should be focusing more on a family budgeting and personal responsibility act over this "Healthy Families" Act which actually does nothing for keep families healthier, yet saps business further in the middle of an economic downturn.

I don't understand why an employer now has to be responsible for an employee's lack of ability to budget. Look, if someone has a serious illness and they need some time off, I get that. I'd hope my employer would give me some support if I or one of my family members had a debilitating disease that required some time off to recover. I just wouldn't anticipate that on an annual basis, I now essentially get an extra 7 vacation days each year. Let's face it, that's what this is going to turn into.


I've seen the FMLA abuses first hand by people who take advantage of the system (i.e. the same people tend to require extended FMLA absences once per year, [often around summer time!]) and the doctors that write some of the bogus justifications are no better. What's in it for them? Just the continued visits and reputation for other would-be FMLA abusers to visit for some easy documentation. If Dr. X doesn't write up that note for my "asthma condition" that allows me to take off whenever I want, I'll go to a doctor who will. Now, this sick day allowance - it's essentially a government-mandated additional 7 vacation days.

Sick Days = Free Vacation Days. Yaaah!

The reality from the people I know that get "sick days" that accrue each year, is they don't actually use them when they're sick. They use them for vacation, for running errands or they are compensated for not using them at the end of the year. I don't begrudge them per se, because everyone else in their company (or government job) is doing the same thing and it's the norm rather than the exception. I don't know, maybe if I were a government worker now, I'd do the same thing and I'm just cranky. In my company, we have unlimited sick days, but I've never used a sick day in my career. Nor have I ever missed a day since I was working as a teenager. I guess I've been lucky, or I stay healthy or whatever and I realize it's not the same for everyone. However, what will really end up happening here is that people will take these 7 days, use them for different purposes as I stated above and when they actually ARE sick - they come to work anyway!!! Why? Because they feel like they're wasting a vacation day or money they could bundle up later. This ill concieved law will not actually help people, but rather, just continue the abuses by a sizeable portion of employees that continually look to get one over on their employers any chance they get.

This is another one of the laws of unintended consequences in my opinion - not to mention government meddling. You're going to increase employer costs, which in turn doesn't help profitability or job creation, while you reward the abusers and punish the people who play by the rules - all while not even addressing the underlying issue - which is the fact that some people can't keep a 7 day emergency fund on hand for unintended expenses.

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