by Mike Hall, Feb 28, 2008

Hey! Tomorrow, TODAY there’s a nationwide rally to drum up support for the Healthy Families Act in Congress that would guarantee paid sick leave for workers to recover from an illness or take care of a sick family member.

You can be there even if you don’t feel like marching in the streets or fighting winter weather because it’s online.

The National Partnership for Women & Families is holding the first-ever online rally for paid sick days, and it starts tomorrow. Click here to take a look at the rally site where you can learn how you can take action, share your story and more.

According to the National Partnership, nearly half of private-sector workers have no paid sick days and low-income workers fare even worse—76 percent have no paid sick leave. Overall, 57 million private-sector workers in this country have no paid sick days, and 94 million cannot use their paid sick day to care for a sick child.

Last year, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced the Healthy Families Act (S. 910 and H.R. 1542) that would require employers with 15 or more employees to provide workers seven paid sick leave days a year to take care of themselves or a family member.

San Francisco is the first city in the nation to require employers to provide workers paid sick leave. In 2006, voters approved paid sick leave referendum and the law went into effect last June. Earlier this month, California state Assemblywoman Fiona Ma introduced a bill modeled after the San Francisco law that would mandate sick leave for all workers in the state. More than a dozen municipalities are considering similar legislation.

Says National Partnership for Women & Families President Debra L. Ness:

Right now, no federal or state law ensures that workers will have the paid sick days they need. That means people are forced to go to work sick—and send children to school or daycare sick—or risk losing a paycheck or even their job. That’s not compassionate, it’s not family friendly and it’s not right. That’s why we’re asking people to take a moment on Friday—or afterward—to help give all workers paid sick days.

Studies show that if workers had just seven paid sick days a year, our nation’s economy would experience a net savings of $8.1 billion because healthy workers are productive workers, and workers who are forced to be on the job when they are sick recover more slowly and can spread disease to their co-workers.

Learn more and urge Congress to support the Healthy Families Act. 

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