Vox video "Why paid sick leave is essential to beating coronavirus"

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Thanks—it showed up as a reply to me, but I didn’t think that’s who your comment addressed. 😀
 
Fauken said:
Because my employer has zero incentive to make sure that I’m actually fit enough to do my job. I’m just a sack of meat, a replaceable cog in their grand, beautiful machine – or person, as you said.
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You work for the federal government too?!!
 
EXdrinker said:
People need to grow up and it was kind of expected in the US at one time.
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What was also expected with employment at one time was a retirement, sick days due to the reality that all persons get sick at some point and will require them, and perks were the sign of the time of a good paying job…Grampa’s day. Back in “his” day a pension was simply considered the sign of having a good job……….Persons weren’t convinced that a bull or bear stock market was the next best thing to saving for assured retirement savings(think Enron) with the threat of social security not being there at some point hanging over their heads.

Yep. Companies weren’t considered being generous back in grampa’s day, they were considered being realists!~
 
I think a lot of us are comparing apples to oranges - - $20 / hour jobs with retirement benefits and sick pay are very different from minimum wage workers who are prepping restaurant food, cutting hair, making coffee drinks, doing janitorial work, etc.
 
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Do you really have so low an opinion of others? You are arguing against paid sick leave because some may abuse it?

I do have paid sick leave but I don’t abuse it and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Either way, if you don’t have paid sick leave, sick people will go to work, infect others and there goes your workforce. Is this good for a small business?
 
Not being having paid sick days will guarantee that your employees go to work sick.

Imagine owning a restaurant and your employees all get sick due to someone going to work sick. I sure won’t want to eat at a restaurant if I see the people working coughing up a lung and looking sick.

Who would?
 
I’ll play.

Lets start with all the people who have jobs funded by taxpayer dollars. Lets eliminate all paid vacations and paid sick leave for them.

Any federal employee
All public school teachers
Police
Fire
Military
City employees
State employees
County employees
Any company that has gov contracts, this would include all defense industry jobs, road building companies,
Elected officials
Any company who provides services to any of the above agencies.
Hospitals and doctors since most take either medicare or medicaid.

I am game for this, since I have been self employed for 27 years. I don’t work, I don’t get paid whether it be days off or sick days.

Are you good with starting at the above list?
 
It’s a frightening quirk of humans (and maybe Americans more so, I say as an American) that if others might have protections they themselves don’t have, they argue no one should have them. We’ve done a really lousy job of educating citizens on the history of labor.
 
One’s faith is stronger, and they become happier and more content with life once they disengage from the media.

All of it.
 
Fauken said:
I guess sick pay, paid vacations, maternity/paternity leave, etc. should be abolished as well. After all, it’s being “responsible”. Why not health insurance too? How can we be so stupid as to think we’ll never get sick? Why should my boss have to pay for something so basic for myself?
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They shouldn’t be abolished. They should be optional means of compensating an employee, along with the pay. Personally, I would just prefer to make 50% more, but some people might be willing to pay 33% of their paycheck for the insurance that all these programs provide. They should be allowed to negotiate that upon hiring, as I should be allowed to go for the higher pay and self-insurance route.
 
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JulianN said:
Without a mandate, corporate “people” have zero reason to offer benefits—there’s a reason unions came to be.
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What do you mean? Do they also have zero incentive to pay you? Some corporate salaries are quite a bit above average or minimum wage. Or are benefits just inherently inferior to salary as a means of compensation?
 
JulianN said:
What do you mean? Do they also have zero incentive to pay you? Some corporate salaries are quite a bit above average or minimum wage.
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I’m not talking about corporate salaries for highly educated or professional workers. I’m talking about the people who are cooking and serving fast food, washing cars, etc. They are often viewed as easily replaceable —and without minimum wage guidelines, would not always even be paid that.

Sick leave and medical benefits are not being paid to most of them now, so clearly the market doesn’t just make that happen.
 
27lw said:
$20 an hour? That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about $7.25 an hour, or $10 an hour.
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How does that change the situation? It’s still an empirical question whether the lower wage employee prefers the extra insurance or the relatively higher pay.
 
Sarcelle said:
Do you really have so low an opinion of others? You are arguing against paid sick leave because some may abuse it?

I do have paid sick leave but I don’t abuse it and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Either way, if you don’t have paid sick leave, sick people will go to work, infect others and there goes your workforce. Is this good for a small business?
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Do you really have so low an opinion of others that you believe they cannot manage their own money and save for sick days?

Many people will not abuse sick days but many will. They see them as extra vacation days and not to be wasted when one has a low grade temperature and a cough. They save them for when their child’s daycare takes a day off or their child gets sick.

What about jobs where an employee works alone and there is no interaction with anyone else to get sick? Why should that business person need to pay someone to stay home? What is wrong with a person hiring a grown adult person to give a good day of work for an agreed on amount of money? Why does anyone else need to even be involved?
 
farronwolf said:
Are you good with starting at the above list?
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Absolutely, except for those that have contracted or agreed upon sick days. I do not care if a business chooses to use that as a way to entice workers. Some people simply want to be taken care of. I just believe that it is harmful to the economy when mandated by law or paid by the state. There is no reason for either. Subidiarity is key. Leave at the lowest level, the person selling their skills and the person purchasing those skills.
 
If they are paid by tax dollars they should not be able to negotiate for it. Tax dollars all the same. What makes it any different from a mandate.
 
EXdrinker said:
Absolutely, except for those that have contracted or agreed upon sick days. I do not care if a business chooses to use that as a way to entice workers. Some people simply want to be taken care of. I just believe that it is harmful to the economy when mandated by law or paid by the state. There is no reason for either. Subidiarity is key. Leave at the lowest level, the person selling their skills and the person purchasing those skills.
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Exactly, mandating exactly one way of paying an employee is completely arbitrary and inconsitent. In this mindset, people are allowed to become self-employed and get none of the benefits, or they are allowed to be regularly employed with all the benefits and the implicit loss in wages, but for some reason picking and choosing a middle ground is taboo.
 
If exdrinker is talking about people who make $20 an hour, then that is probably a white-collar or trained trade or worker with some kind of training and value to their employer. Someone making $20 an hour probably does have much more of a financial cushion to save for a rainy day, etc.
Someone making minimum wage has much less of a financial cushion there.
I think everyone knows that the biggest financial hurdle to overcome is having children when not married.
Also, people are allowed to use sick time for family members.
 
Couple of other questions. So there should be no oversight on wages/benefits, anything. Employers should just be able to hire the cheapest labor they can and pay the least wages and benefits possible?

Seems this is a good recipe for making larger wealth disparity. We could get rid of workplace safety and go back to the way it was during the industrial revolution. Work someone till they die and then pull in the next sucker off the line outside.

Should we also take this approach in regards to the Church. Should each parish be able to do as it pleases. We could do away with Bishops and Rome and the Pope even. Would save quite a bit of overhead that the people of the parish pay for. Maybe we could just expect a Priest to work for nothing. After all they have their housing and meals provided for them already, what else do they really need? Or better yet, they could live like Christ and the Apostles did, simply going house to house and hoping folks would put them up for the night.
 
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