Sick Leave: I've Got 0 Hours, You?

When my daughter started throwing up in her bed tonight, I hate to admit it, but my very first thought was that I have not one single hour of sick leave at work.  That's right, not even one.  And I'm one of the lucky working mamas who actually gets sick leave where I work, 12 days a year, to be exact.  There are plenty of American parents who get none.  Why do I have 0 hours of sick leave, you ask?  Because I've had a long illness?  Nope.  Kids sick all the time?  No more than average.  Oh right!  How could I forget??  I returned to work after two maternity leaves in three years with a negative sick leave balance.  Why is that you ask?  Because there is NO PAID LEAVE REQUIREMENT in this country.  So while I was lucky enough to be able to convert advanced sick hours into cash while on leave to, yes, pay our mortgage, rebuilding my sick leave bank took time - a whole lot of time.  Without paid leave, I had to exhaust all that I had earned (and worked hard to save) to earn anything while home with my babes. 

I know, I know, paid leave, sick leave - tired old topics.  Can't we just move on?  Talk about something else?  If someone in Oregon or DC would just step up to the plate & solve this mess, we could.  But this time it's ME who's directly affected, so I'm gonna keep on talkin'. 

It is simply not reasonable to expect working parents to get by with little to no sick leave.  If I hadn't had to use every hour of my sick leave twice in the last three years, I would not have this problem right now.  I could focus on comforting my girl, wiping her face, changing her clothes (and of course doing another load of laundry!).  Instead, I am strategies with my husband about which of us is going to head to work at 6 AM and who's going to work at night to minimize sick hours and money lost (my husband works for himself so has no paid sick time; flexibility yes, and thankfully).  So if I stay home for even part of the day tomorrow, we're talking unpaid leave. Excellent for the family finances, huh?

Where you come in.  We already discussed how uMs handle sick leave - always fascinating to see how other families approach similar problems - so all I'm asking is: how many sick hours do YOU have?  Is it enough?  Ready to do something (besides, rant, that is)?  Good - you can support the Healthy Families Act, which would guarantee all full-time workers in this country at least some sick paid leave.  If 12 days/year is failing me, imagine if you got none?  And, keep tabs on the paid family leave proposal in Congress.  With some serious nudging from us Mamastituents, this bill could just make it off capitol hill.

Come on Salem, come on DC - is this any way to drive a productive economy?  To support families?  Raise the next generation?  Is is that hard to do the right thing when the business community (surprise!) doesn't like it?

Comments

[Amy3]

I completely agree, even though the whole situation appears to make the non-parent employees resent us even more ... time away is time away to the colleagues, we decide to have a kid and we get extra paid time off, blah blah ... all of that aside, I, too, have 12 days of sick leave per year and am very fortunate that so far my employer is reasonable about counting telecommuting hours as work hours ... so I turn on my computer and juggle email and projects all day, while tending to the sickies. It is NOT EASY. I am so glad to have an understanding director, and I hope they know that it makes me an extremely loyal employee who is willing to go the extra mile in return for the consideration.

[Amy3]

Oops, and I meant to add that I had to use ALL of my banked leave just to get a paycheck for 6 weeks ... and then took 6 weeks unpaid, which was really tough.

[Lisa]

As for the non-parents, I guess I see it in a sense like the many other things we all fund that are good for society but might not directly benefit us (public schools, mental health services, env enforcement, pub health, etc...).

I realize that the direct comparison in a workplace can be hard, though. Perhaps if the FMLA allowed for paid leave for the same purposes it already exists, then all workers, with or without children, would benefit (the non-parents coudl sue it to care for sick parents, partners, etc...). I think the fear on that (among the business community)is that people would abuse it.

There must be a way to allow non-parents another, similar beneift - perhaps a sabatical. Not sure how such a program woudl be designed, but this type of thinking could well welcome some new supporters into the mix!