Add Councilmember Sara Gonzalez to ranks of those pushing to make a citywide paid sick days bill a top priority at the City Council. Gonzalez penned an op-ed in El Barrio, the Spanish-language weekly serving Sunset Park, noting that low-income Latino workers are among those least likely to receive paid sick days on the job. (Just 28% have the benefit, according to CSS).
Here’s the translation:
EL BARRIO
The Need for Paid Sick Leave
by Sara Gonzalez
…Paid sick leave is not only a public health issue, as people going to work sick risk the spread of germs and illness, but it is also a moral issue.
No worker should have to make the choice between losing their job and putting their health at risk. This is particularly important for low-income Latinos. A recent study from the Community Service Society found that “low-income Latinos are least likely to have paid sick leave.” In fact, a staggering 72% do not, meaning many are going to work and coming into contact with co-workers and consumers when they should be visiting a doctor or hospital. Statistics such as these have prompted the Obama Administration to endorse national paid sick leave legislation.
Working mothers are also heavily burdened by the lack of paid sick leave days. As the same study demonstrates, “[the 60% of low-income working mothers who are not allowed to take off from work and still get paid because they are sick] face a double challenge. In addition to needing leave for themselves, they shoulder the majority of responsibility for caring for sick children.” Parents should never be forced to choose between caring for their sick child and losing their livelihood. Furthermore, these parents should not force a sick child to go to school because they cannot take off from work and therefore cannot afford to take them to a doctor or care for them at home. This is why over three-quarters of public school parents support a Paid Sick Leave law in New York City: not passing such a law puts the health of our school children at risk.
…
[T]his bill is sensitive to the needs of small businesses. It will level the playing field by ensuring that good employers who already provide their workers with paid sick days are not at a disadvantage with those that do not. This bill not only requires small businesses to provide fewer paid sick days than larger businesses, but it also allows for small business owners to request reasonable advance notice of the need to use paid sick time and for their employee to provide documentation of the reason for their paid sick days when appropriate. Furthermore, responsible business owners who already provide sufficient paid sick days to their workers would not be forced to add more once this law is passed.
New York City Councilwoman Sara M. Gonzalez (D, District 38- Bay Ridge Towers, Borough Park, Park Slope, Red Hook, Sunset Park)
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