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Especially in this time of economic uncertainty, working people need paid sick days -- and everyone benefits when everyone has them.
Help us get there. Sign the petition now.
Everybody benefits from paid sick days. Guaranteeing paid sick days for all workers will helps employees get well sooner, allow families to recover faster, reduce the general public's explosure to illness, reduce healthcare costs, increase on-the-job productivity and show respect to our state's workers.
4 Big Reasons to Support Paid Sick Days:
(download the PDF with additional information, quotes and facts)
1) Paid Sick Days Enhance Public Health:
WHEN EMPLOYEES GO TO WORK SICK, their germs become our germs. Hundreds of thousands of Connecticut employees without sick days work in the food service, healthcare and retail sectors. They prepare our food, sell our groceries and care for the sick and elderly. Infectious illness is particularly harmful in institutional settings like schools and nursing homes, where vulnerable populations are in close contact. The fact that school cafeteria workers and nursing home aides so often lack paid sick days defies common sense.
2) Paid Sick Days Support Family Economic Security
FOR TOO MANY FAMILIES, losing a day’s pay – or even losing a job – is as easy as catching a cold. Missing a day's pay to take a child to the doctor could mean missing a mortgage payment or falling deeper into debt. Especially in these tough economic times, just a few paid sick days a year can provide working families a much needed measure of economic security.
3) Paid Sick Days are Smart Business
BY ALLOWING EMPLOYEES to earn paid sick time, employers can increase productivity at the workplace and save money in the long run. Employees who come to work sick are less productive and recover slower. They’re also more likely to spread illness to co-workers, which reduces productivity and increases absenteeism. Paid sick days help retain good employees and keep turnover costs low; it is far more expensive replace an employee who loses his job because of an illness than to provide paid sick days.
4) Paid Sick Days Increase Access to Preventive Healthcare
PAID SICK DAYS ALLOW working families to get regular preventive care and early treatment for illnesses. People without paid sick days are more likely to depend on emergency room services, driving up costs for all of us. They’re also less likely to receive the kind of preventive care that keeps people healthy, lessens the risk of chronic illness, and keeps healthcare costs down for all of us over the long term.
