NEW YORK—Public officials, doctors and advocates spoke out for the more than 900,000 New York workers who do not have one paid sick day at City Hall on Wednesday.
“People force themselves to go to work, because they have no other option,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
“When doormen get sick, they can take off, because they have sick days … But if you are a security officer in the city, you are going to be at work if you are sick, because you cannot afford to take the day off without pay,” said Mike Fishman, president of 32BJ Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
According to a report by Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York in 2005, 84 percent of New York City restaurant workers do not possess paid sick leaves. One example would be Saul Lopez, a 16-year restaurant worker from Corona, Queens.
“Even when I felt sick, there were many times that I forced myself to continue to work, so that I would not lose one or more days of [payment],” said Lopez. “I remember many times I would wake up with a fever, a cold, a sore throat and I would feel unable to call in for a sick day from work, because of the fear of being fired.”
“At my most recent job, for weeks my employer hadn’t paid me the hours that I’d been working. There was one day that I could not go to work, because I felt ill. … I called work … and [the employer] said, ‘If you are not going to come to work today, don’t come back tomorrow. There’s no job for you here.’ That’s how I lost my job,” he said.
Currently, cities such as San Francisco and Washington D.C. have implemented laws to ensure all employers provide a minimum number of paid sick days to their employees.
A bill will be introduced on August 30 by City Council Member Gale Brewer proposing nine paid sick days per year for low and medium-wage full-time employees and five days annually for part-time or small business (10 or less employees) employees.
“Almost without exception, all of our elected leaders have signaled their support in the idea of paid sick days,” said Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party. “The reason could not be simpler. This is the golden rule: If you are not willing to live without paid sick days, you shouldn’t ask somebody else to live without paid sick days.”
Cantor said that the initiative taken by Brewer and the advocacy groups will “boost the national movement” in urging for paid sick days.
