#Republican Koch-backed group fights paid sick leave laws as flu sweeps US
This is not the America I once knew!
Koch-backed group fights paid sick leave laws as flu sweeps US
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/11/paid-sick-leave-koch-brothers-nfib
The lobbying group that led the assault on Obamacare has targeted movements across the US to ensure workers can get needed time off
Renée Feltz @reneefeltz
Sun 11 Feb 2018 06.00 EST
Last modified on Sun 11 Feb 2018 06.01 EST
This week marks 25 years since Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gives US workers the right to unpaid time off to care for themselves and close family members.
It took another decade for some to win paid sick leave, when San Franciscans approved a ballot initiative in 2006 for private employees to earn an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. Similar measures now benefit 14 million workers in 32 municipalities and nine states.
Paid sick leave advocates cite studies showing flu infection rates decrease in cities where workers earn sick days, and that parents who cannot take leave are two times more likely to send their sick children to school. They also point to a 2012 poll of restaurant servers and cooks that revealed two-thirds had served or cooked food while ill, threatening the health of their co-workers, customers and the companies that employ them.
US flu season now as bad as 2009 swine flu epidemic
But with a flu epidemic currently raging across the US, potential new sick leave measures are facing opposition from the same Koch Brothers-backed lobbying group that led the legal assault on Obamacare.
When Maryland lawmakers moved last month to override the governor’s veto of a bill allowing 700,000 workers to earn sick leave, the state’s director of the National Federation of Independent Business – the Koch-backed group – complained it would create job-killing costs and mandate “devastating sanctions” for failure to comply.
On Thursday, the NFIB backed a failed attempt to delay the law, which went into effect on Sunday. .............................
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Paid sick leave advocates cite studies showing flu infection rates decrease in cities where workers earn sick days. Photograph: JohnnyGreig/Getty Images
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