By Steve Smith
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As we get closer to the end of the California legislative session, you see a lot more corporate types in fancy suits roaming in and around the Capitol. The goal? Stamp out worker-friendly bills. Near the top of their hit list this year is AB 1522, an effort authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez to allow all California workers to earn a few desperately needed paid sick days on the job. <\/p>\n
In most other countries, this isn’t a controversial notion. 136 countries around the world have national laws that all workers to earn paid sick days. Most modern economies have made paid sick leave a basic workplace right because when workers are forced to go to a workplace when they’re sick, everyone from consumers to workers to businesses is put at risk. <\/p>\n
Here in the United States, polling shows 86 percent of Americans favor paid sick leave policy. Yet, only one state (Connecticut) has a paid sick leave law. Why so much resistance to something that seems common-sense and fundamental? Let’s go back to those business lobbyists roaming the Capitol. The Chamber of Commerce has labeled paid sick days a so-called “job killer.” Not because it actually kills jobs (research shows<\/a> the laws in Connecticut and San Francisco didn’t have negative impact on jobs). No, for business lobbyists, “job killer” is merely code for any law that supports working people. <\/p>\n Lobbyists like John Kabatek of the National Federation of Independent Business use arguments like the law “will create uncertainty.” Uncertainty<\/i>? When I think of uncertainty, I think about the single mom who has to choose between going to work sick and possibly infecting her co-workers and customers OR staying home with a sick child and missing the rent payment. In today’s economy, that’s the uncertainty that 5.5 million workers face, many of whom are in low-wage jobs at multi-billion dollar corporations like Walmart and McDonald’s. <\/p>\n The Senate Appropriations committee, led by Senate President Pro tem-elect Kevin de Leon, has an opportunity to do the right thing this week and send the bill to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote. It’s time to stand up to the corporate lobbyists swarming the Capitol. Millions of Californians who are without even a single paid sick day on the job are depending on it. If you haven’t already, please sign the petition in support of AB 1522.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Steve Smith In most other countries, this isn’t a controversial notion. 136 countries around the world have national laws that all workers to earn paid sick days. Most modern economies have made paid sick leave a basic workplace right because when workers are forced to go to a workplace when they’re sick, everyone from consumers to workers to businesses is put at risk. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2360,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[3483,11422,9632],"class_list":["post-15572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-22","tag-3483","tag-11422","tag-9632"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-43a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2360"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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As we get closer to the end of the California legislative session, you see a lot more corporate types in fancy suits roaming in and around the Capitol. The goal? Stamp out worker-friendly bills. Near the top of their hit list this year is AB 1522, an effort authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez to allow all California workers to earn a few desperately needed paid sick days on the job. <\/p>\n