California workers will get five sick days instead of three under law signed by Gov. Newsom
California workers will get five sick days instead of three under law signed by Gov. Newsom
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a law to increase the amount of minimum sick days for workers from three days to five.
Workers in California will soon receive a minimum of five days of paid sick leave annually, instead of three, under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Wednesday.
The law, which takes effect in January, also increases the amount of sick leave workers can carry over into the following year. Newsom said it demonstrates that prioritizing the health and well-being of workers “is of the utmost importance for California’s future.”
“Too many folks are still having to choose between skipping a day’s pay and taking care of themselves or their family members when they get sick,” Newsom said in a statement announcing his action.
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Ok, I understand how sick days work in USA, and while I dislike the idea, I get it from that point of view.
However... carrying over sick days?! That's where it fails to make any sense. Rewarding people who are not sick.. by allowing them to be more sick? Thanks for nothing I guess. Wouldn't it make more sense to give extra sick days to the people who are more sick than others? Accruing sick days will obviously result in people wanting to use their sick days.
So this system really encourages people to advantage of the system, and the whole thing is soo far away from actually wanting to minimize sick days.
The proper way to minimize sick days is to let sick people stay the fuck away. Even if you have to pay them to stay away, that cost will be recouped by all the other people who don't get sick due to some jackass creeping into the office while being sick, because he can't afford to stay at home.
By having a fixed no. of 5 sick days and encouraging people to use 5 sick days, you'll obviously have 5 sick days for every employee. And then some for when they're actually sick.
I am allowed unlimited paid sick days, but yet I have less than 5 sick days annually. Probably closer to zero. Except for covid two years ago which took 3 (working) days and a weekend and was fully reimbursed by the government to my employer anyway.
The way this is done generally is that when someone has been sick for more than a few days, the government will refund up to the unemployment rate to the employer, so they can maintain the employment relationship without having to worry about massive costs. This is a thousand times better for employers and the state and the employees than having to terminate and employ staff constantly due to some artificial "no. of sick days".
This criticism is dumb.
Carrying over sick days is fine because the employer already alloted pay for that. Sick days are no different than vacation days from a fiscal perspective, the only difference is you don't need to schedule them and/or there may be specific laws about them.
You then claim "accruing sick days will make people want to use them"-
- No. In fact the converse is true, sick days that don't carry over pressures employees to take them. Because you are basically losing a vacation day, you would be an idiot to not use all 5 days each year. (In case you are confused, no you don't actually have to be sick to use sick days, many companies have a "don't ask" policy.)
- This doesn't really matter since in the US virtually every employer will cash out the sick time at the end of employment so it costs the same anyway, because as already mentioned the money has already been allocated.
I just think it's silly to allow employers to quantify bodily functions.
"To all employees: You can use the restroom 3 times weekly. We acknowledge that this isn't enough, so If you do not use the restroom 3 times weekly, you can carry over the unused restroom visits to next week."
It is just a small amount of PTO and fine if that's how it's used, but it doesn't make any sense in helping people cope wih or prevent sickness.
I understand the reason to minimize the liability for the employers, but having a rigid system like this only creates needless frustration and conflicts when people are actually sick.
You literally claimed yourself that 5 days a year is plenty for yourself (via stating that you don't use that many days). So this supposed acknowledgement "that this isn't enough", doesn't appear to be true. You apparently think that it is enough and would even be able to save up days just from your normal behaviour.
"I understand the reason to minimize the liability for the employers"- the liability? Do you mean the expenses of paying for indefinite leave? Where does liability come anywhere into this? Do you know what that word means?
You seem to be arguing for indefinite sick time (which is actually paid by taxpayers because businesses can't pay people who produce nothing), but doing it by attacking a more beneficial system for employees (apparently because you have no idea what you are talking about).
I think you're missing the point. A fixed quantity of sick days will ensure that people show up sick for work when they run out of sick days. It will also create needless conflicts and mistrust. It will also cause a higher cost for the companies.
And... It does not stop sickness.
All of this because someone is dead set on quantifying something that should not be quantified.
Call it paid time off or add it to paid holidays, but don't pretend that this is better system to address sickness for anyone.
- edit: And yes I use the word" liability" correctly. By having a fixed count of potential sick days, employers do accrue a balance of potential cost to paying employees being sick. Otherwise you're not keeping account of the potential future finalcial liabilities and screwing your own tax return at the same time. It's obviously deductable before tax.
"I think you are missing the point"
Nope, you specifically complained about having more flexible days by allowing people to carry over sick time. Now presumably you think that it's better to have unlimited sick time, but at no point have you ever actually said that. All you have done is whine about carrying over sick time.
"A fixed quantity of sick days will ensure that people show up sick for work when they run out"
Of course sick time is necessarily equal to or less than total employment time (eventually you will have to work at some point, so clearly any set number of sick time can theoretically be insufficient). Now having 40 hrs of sick time each year is by your own admission plenty for you and plenty for most people. If companies were actually losing appreciable amounts of money on their sick time policy (like you claim ) they would change it. It's easy to see that "Flu costs 12 billion $/pa" and forget that the US economy is larger by a factor of 1000 ( so less than .1 percent economic loss), as well as workplace transmission only comprising a fraction of that.
"And it doesn't stop sickness"
Of course it doesn't. Much of sick time isn't used for communicable health issues and people tend to contract communicable diseases elsewhere anyway.
"Call it paid time off or holiday"
You literally have no idea what this discussion is about. You whined about carrying over sick days and how it "doesn't make sense" (because you're an idiot), and I pointed out that fiscally sick time is identical to vacation time, so if it's okay to carry over vacation time then why is it not permissible for sick time?
"Don't pretend that this is a better system"
A better system than what? Fixed amount of sick time each year? Because that's the point of comparison. I can't compare it to whatever you are advocating for because you flat out refuse to say it. (Again I strongly suspect you want indefinite sick time, but despite having multiple opportunities to elaborate you have failed to do so).
"By having a fixed account ... {bunch of irrelevant nonsense}"
You realise the distinction you need to make is not in fixed days, compared to zero days. But fixed days compared to carried over days. If you are going to try to make a fiscal argument (again) actually try to understand what you are talking about.
Edit: You did misuse "liability", or are at least fiscally inept. You claimed that carrying over sick time was somehow reducing liability, so either you have no idea what that word means or you don't know how basic finance works. (It actually increases financial costs because you often have to pay out sick time at a higher rate if the employee pay increases.)
So what if employees take advantage of the system if they still get their work done? If they don't get their work done, that's when a manager can step in.
Also 5 sick days a year is abysmal. I'd expect the sick days to get carried over where your sick leave is that low.