Quote :

" Related Items RAL-nc-flag Video Video * Bill would give workers paid sick leave Related Links Related Links * WRAL.com Legislative Digest (Blog) * WRAL.com Local Politics On The Web On The Web * House Bill 177 * NC Paid Sick Days Campaign * North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association * North Carolina General Assembly * N.C. Statutes/Find a Bill [search] Site Search Bill would guarantee paid sick leave RAL-nc-flag Posted: Today at 6:00 p.m. Updated: 26 minutes ago Raleigh, N.C. — A bill introduced in the state House of Representatives on Wednesday would provide paid sick leave for the more than 1 million workers statewide who do not have it. About 1.6 million workers in the state do not have paid sick leave, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Forty-two percent of those workers are in the private sector. Bill would guarantee paid sick leave WATCH VIDEO Bill would give workers paid sick leave The bill would guarantee all workers up to 56 hours, or seven eight-hour days, of paid sick time per year. Employers with fewer than 10 workers would have to provide up to 32 hours of paid sick time. Workers would earn an hour of paid leave for every 30 hours' work. Advocates with the North Carolina Justice Center say people coming to work while sick is a cost to public health. “The folks who disproportionately lack paid sick days are the very folks who are cooking our food and serving it to us … working in hospitals and doctors' offices and in our child care centers taking care of our kids,” said NC Paid Sick Days Campaign coordinator Louisa Warren, who is also with the N.C. Justice Center. The Justice Center is among more than 30 groups, including AARP North Carolina and ACORN North Carolina, that support the bill. Paul Stone, president and CEO of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, said his group opposes the bill. The costs to provide paid sick leave to all employees would ultimately hurt businesses like restaurants and hotels, which operate on thin profit margins, particularly in these tough economic times, Stone said. Brett McGinnis, a bartender for nearly 20 years, said he has never had a day of paid sick leave. “You basically find somebody to cover your shift and hope that it doesn’t last for more than a couple of days,” McGinnis said. McGinnis works at newly opened restaurant, The Flying Biscuit Café, in Raleigh, which employs about 50 people. “We allow them to call off. We just don’t pay them,” The Flying Biscuit Café part-owner Todd Keller said. Keller thinks the bill is a good idea but will ultimately hurt a lot of small businesses. “Morally, yes, I would love to be able to offer my employees those kinds of benefits. It’d be great. They deserve it. But financially, I don’t think it’s possible,” Keller said. Keller said he'd have to pass the costs on to customers by raising prices. Advocates say offering paid sick days would benefit the employer by making employees more loyal and more productive when they have time to recover. The proposed bill covers people in incorporated businesses. The bill would not cover babysitters, lawn mowers or housekeepers unaffiliated with a corporation. Agricultural workers would also not be guaranteed paid sick leave. Nurse’s aides and hospice care workers would be covered because their health directly affects the health of their patients."

Theoretically, if no one got sick they would showed up normally they would get paid, and likewise if some was suppose to be off and came in to cover someone, the establishment would still have to pay. I can kind of understand what this guy is saying, but it should not be that big of a deal for most places to pay for a week of sickness, unless you are poorly managing your resources. I also realize that some might try to take advantage of this, but still I don't think it should be to the point where the 'cost should be passed on to the customer.'

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 7:23 PM. Reason : /]

2/18/2009 7:22:49 PM

sounds like an Obama idea if I've ever heard one. Keep those money printing presses rolling!

2/18/2009 7:30:23 PM

Yes, Obama is busily spending his time at the NC legislature.

2/18/2009 7:43:24 PM

policy (and shit) roll down hill

2/18/2009 7:45:32 PM

Quote :

" but it should not be that big of a deal for most places to pay for a week of sickness,"

This particular restaurant employees 50 people...

50 employees * 56 hours = 2800 hours

2800 hours / 40 hours per week = 70 weeks

...this law effectively forces the restaurant to hire an extra 1.3 full time employees per year. That can be pretty significant for a small business, especially if the business has to pay taxes, social security, etc. for those extra, non-working hours.

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 8:22 PM. Reason : ]

2/18/2009 8:10:37 PM

Do that in normal economic times and you will get business closure, followed by higher prices, and finally a return to normalcy.

Do that during a recession and you accelerate the economic ruin, prolonging and deepening the recession. Just ask Hoover and FDR, they know how to turn a severe recession into a generation long depression.

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 9:09 PM. Reason : .,.]

2/18/2009 9:09:43 PM

I thought the point of sick pay was not just b.c your employer feels he has a moral obligation to offer it. The most important reason is to discourage sick employees from coming in and spreading contagious diseases to others that could have a severe negative effect on output.

The trade off of letting workers take a week of sick pay rather they are sick or faking it is worth the potential risk having having an epidemic sweep through your office.

2/18/2009 9:24:07 PM

ugh. whats wrong with letting individual businesses decide what is best for themselves? jesus.

2/18/2009 9:36:06 PM

Having to hire 1.3 extra workers out of a crew of 50, that's a 2.6% increase in payroll. It seems like a bargin, if it will help insure that workers don't have to come into work sick.

It's not just themselves sick affect. If they are cooks, or work with the public, there is potential for a lot of people getting sick. Even in business they could infect an office full of people, with a loss in productivity. It sounds like it could be not only good for businesses, but good for th public.

2/18/2009 10:04:29 PM

Very typical politician's ploy: Force employers to pay for some benefit and then take credit for it.

"I got you paid sick leave!"

Quote :

"Advocates with the North Carolina Justice Center say people coming to work while sick is a cost to public health."

Good example of the attitude if gov't takes over health care. Once the state is paying for our medical care, it will come up with an unending variety of "health" justifications to control our lives more and more.

This bill, if passed, will kill jobs and raise prices. It essentially gives employees a free pass to miss work.

And would the state of North Carolina also be forced to follow this law? That would add millions of dollars of expense that the state does not have.

I believe a similar bill was defeated in very liberal California last year. Hopefully our politicians will have enough sense to turn this nanny-state intrusion off to its own sick leave.

2/18/2009 11:17:45 PM

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 11:26 PM. Reason : .]

2/18/2009 11:24:13 PM

Quote :

"It's not just themselves sick affect. If they are cooks, or work with the public, there is potential for a lot of people getting sick."

OMG LET THE FREE MARKET SETTLE IT OUT. IF PEOPLE DON"T WANT TO BE SICK THEY WON'T GO TO THE RESTAURANTS WHERE SICK CHEFS/WAITERS COME IN B.C. THEY DONT GET SICK PAY DURRR!!

I'm all about free markets but we got to be practical. Perhaps businesses could force sick employees home but many would be able to fake health if they alternative was loss of pay. I don't want to be exposed and potentially infected with some random flu strain or horrid stomach virus while i cash a check b.c the Jew CEO of Bank of America decided to scrap paid sick leave for its tellers.

I would full support though allowing businesses to require a doctors note to ensure that an employee

Quote :

"And would the state of North Carolina also be forced to follow this law? That would add millions of dollars of expense that the state does not have."

Evidence please?
At the least paid sick leave should be required for businesses that have employees interacting with the public. Otherwise miserly owners are merely padding their bottom line at the expense of the health and expense of the rest of society.

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 11:28 PM. Reason : L]

2/18/2009 11:25:21 PM

Quote :

"It's not just themselves sick affect. If they are cooks, or work with the public, there is potential for a lot of people getting sick. Even in business they could infect an office full of people, with a loss in productivity. It sounds like it could be not only good for businesses, but good for th public."

Anecdotally, paid sick leave seems to make people more likely to come into work when they're "just kind of sick" so that they can save their sick leave for when they're really sick. Especially when you're talking about an average of a half day per month, most people use the least amount they can and suck it up the rest of the time.

When you have nothing to lose when you don't have sick leave, it seems you're more likely to call out when you first start feeling bad so that you can recover quicker, instead of holding off and hoping you get better.

Quote :

"I would full support though allowing businesses to require a doctors note to ensure that an employee isn't "sick" for the day to go fishing or out b.c of a hang nail. "

That would be a bad idea. Not only do you force the employers to pay for sick leave, but now you're forcing employees to go to the doctor every time they call out, regardless of whether they really need to go to the doctor or not, using up some of that sick pay to begin with, or if they don't have insurance, using up potentially much more than they would have lost if they didn't have sick leave to begin with.

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 11:31 PM. Reason : gyui]

2/18/2009 11:28:44 PM

Quote :

" When you have nothing to lose when you don't have sick leave, it seems you're more likely to call out when you first start feeling bad so that you can recover quicker, instead of holding off and hoping you get better."

you lose a full days wages. I imagine most blue collar hourly workers would do the opposite of what you say. Being to "manly" to admit illness they'd suck it up to make it to work while their health detoriates to the point where they absolutely have to go. Since often they are stubborn if not irresponsible about health care issues.

2/18/2009 11:31:31 PM

What Anecdotes are you referring ot?

2/18/2009 11:31:35 PM

Quote :

"The most important reason is to discourage sick employees from coming in and spreading contagious diseases to others that could have a severe negative effect on output."

Indeed. Every place I've worked might as well have been run by the microbes. Rather than pressuring folks to work as long as they can fake a pulse, a smart society would discourage sick people from exposing others.

2/18/2009 11:36:26 PM

Quote :

"Not only do you force the employers to pay for sick leave, but now you're forcing employees to go to the doctor every time they call out, regardless of whether they really need to go to the doctor or not"

well OBVIOUSLY if they do not require a visit to the doctor than perhaps they should be at work and not need a sick day. duh!

If they are merely hung over or have menstrual cramps and want to take a day off than so be it. However, they sacrifice their sick pay for not showing up. Even better if they don't have insurance since the benefit of trying to lure a doctors note to get sick pay is not worth the uninsured cost.

How naive to think that your boss is just a "nice guy" hence why most professional salaried jobs provide sick pay; even teachers.

Otherwise healthy employees are getting sick and end up losing wages b.c they are not idiots to work with a 104 degree fever; but got infected from Billy Rae who decided to "man up" and work while he had SARS to not miss any money he needed for his new F150

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 11:41 PM. Reason : l]

2/18/2009 11:38:21 PM

^^^ Just what I've observed in my work place.

^^^^ Depends. The article isn't quite clear, but it seems this bill targets all workers. Since most full time employees at places get sick leave, I would guess this bill targets mostly part time workers, where losing a shift isn't a huge chuck of change (compared to losing 2 or 3 because you worked yourself to the bone).

And when we talk about doing this to protect waiters and servers and bartenders and such, do we account for the fact that this sick leave will likely only pay their wage (minimum) and not account for the tips they could be accruing that shift? I would imagine that would provide incentives to work even though you have sick leave.

Quote :

"well OBVIOUSLY if they do not require a visit to the doctor than perhaps they should be at work and not need a sick day. duh! "

Really? Do you seriously go to the doctor every time you come down with the common cold?

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 11:43 PM. Reason : asdf]

2/18/2009 11:41:30 PM

in a perfect world where people only take sick days when they are sick i can kinda agree with this (although i still wouldnt like a law mandating it). but if this passes it will just be used as vacation time.

7 days a year is crazy, if this passed employers would have to cut back vacation benefits to compensate.

i'm trying to find more information, but are there at least certain exemptions? the company i work for hires close to a thousand seasonal employees, if they all got 7 days "vacation" it would blow the labor budgets out of the water.

2/18/2009 11:45:17 PM

Well i don't skip work b.c i have a stuffy nose.

2/18/2009 11:46:34 PM

even requiring a note adds a lot of overhead to companies with a lot of employees because someone has to check, process, and keep records of all of those notes.

a lot of companies now have "personal days" and don't require a note because they assume you will use the days responsibly.



my biggest problem with this is the amount of time and seemingly lack of exemptions. i think i get 2 sick days a year and 1 or 2 personal days or something like that. 7 days is insane

2/18/2009 11:50:51 PM

^^Neither do I, but when I run a 104 fever, I don't need to pay a doctor to tell me "Yep, you're sick. Probably a virus, take two advil as needed, drink lots of fluids, rest up and try to avoid tonsil hockey for the next few days".

[Edited on February 18, 2009 at 11:51 PM. Reason : dsf]

2/18/2009 11:51:09 PM

Obviously doesn't apply to service jobs, but for thinking jobs, it's possible that fewer hours increases total productivity.

Some people are assuming that unintended consequences are only negative.

2/19/2009 12:01:45 AM

[Edited on February 19, 2009 at 12:17 AM. Reason : n/m. i'm an idiot]

2/19/2009 12:16:44 AM

^^^

lol if you have a 104 fever you have some issues

2/19/2009 7:30:58 AM

Quote :

"It essentially gives employees a free pass to miss work. "

I would say not really, because in a lot of cases you may have to provide a Dr's note, or some other proof you were sick...

Not only that, its only a weeks worth of time, its not like they accrue sick time every month like some jobs. Also, your hiring practice should encompass not only hiring people that can do that job, but people that can also work on a honor system. The service industry may see attempted abuse since a lot of people that work as restaurant do drugs, there is a chance they will abuse this but not really depending on how it is set up, but at a real company with real jobs that make good money most people are not going to risk abusing the paid sick leave out of fear of losing their job because 'someone has to be there all the time.' I attended a seminar on drug use in the work place and they talked about how people that use drugs a lot will tend to miss more work, feign illness, file for worker's comp, be late and make mistakes twice as much as someone who doesn't do drugs.

[Edited on February 19, 2009 at 8:22 AM. Reason : /]

2/19/2009 8:15:20 AM

hahaha... This is great. So now, an employer will have to pay the person who doens't show up AND the person they call in to replace them. Brilliant!

I have an idea. You want to implement this? Then make the government pay for it. Oh, that would be a lot harder to sell huh?

2/19/2009 9:22:33 AM

I agree, 56 hours is a bit much.

Quote :

"likewise if some was suppose to be off and came in to cover someone, the establishment would still have to pay."

Actually a person will still be needed to cover the shift, AND the sick person will still have to receive pay. This increases their overhead noticeably. However the person who mentioned that the employees would likely only receive their base pay is probably accurate, and this will not devastate the employer.

Quote :

"And would the state of North Carolina also be forced to follow this law? That would add millions of dollars of expense that the state does not have."

For the record, the state already provides ample sick leave, and your sick leave carries over. Teachers, for example, often save up their sick leave so that they can retire early. A family friend is a principle and will retire two years early due to it. So this change will hardly affect the state.

2/19/2009 10:02:37 AM

Quote :

"This is great. So now, an employer will have to pay the person who doens't show up AND the person they call in to replace them. Brilliant!"

I do not think you read a single post within this thread.

Quote :

"in a perfect world where people only take sick days when they are sick i can kinda agree with this (although i still wouldnt like a law mandating it). but if this passes it will just be used as vacation time. "

sure, its possible but than when they really do get sick as in can not get out of bed w/o puking; they will not get paid.
Even if a few macho men decide to make it to work somehow the occurance of contagious sick employees interacting and infecting
customers as well as their fellow employees would be significantly reduced.

besides your employees should be as the quote below says.

Quote :

"your hiring practice should encompass not only hiring people that can do that job, but people that can also work on a honor system."

Maybe 7 days is to much; so make it 5 days paid sick leave for all Full-Time NON Seasonal employees

oh knowz the uber socialist li li li liberals err trying to ruin my free market captism and want tuk er monies from my companys to provides paid sick times to employees

I am sure many of you in this thread would have complained until the cows came home if this was the year 1909 instead of 2009 and
we were debating about the 40 hour work week and child labor restrictions. These ruin our free markets and company profits AM I RITE?

2/19/2009 10:02:37 AM

anyone else get the feeling that our government just goes around looking for stuff to regulate?

I got an idea, how about one of them actually balance a budget and prove they know what they are talking about in regards to running a business (thats what government is, after all) before they instruct private businesses how they ought to operate.

they all live in fucking dream world that just rains cash down on them that they spend with very little thought. most have no idea how it works in the real world.

2/19/2009 10:31:37 AM

I hang out with a lot of government employees and they all get paid sick days. But as they say it, "why would anyone waste a sick day when they were sick?" Me and my best friend are taking a sick day on friday to watch movies. His co-worker took a sick day last friday to build a four-day weekend, so he took his family to the beach. That is just how it works there; sick-days are really vacation days, and that is fine. The job they do really does not need them there everyday, so allowing them to take random days off does not cause a problem.

However, not all businesses can do that. Many jobs cannot simply be done later. As such, this should be left up to negotiations between the employer and his labor markets. If workers would prefer getting paid higher wages to getting paid sick leave, then so be it. If a worker at that factory disagrees, there are employers offering paid sick (vacation) leave.

Quote :

"I am sure many of you in this thread would have complained until the cows came home if this was the year 1909 instead of 2009 and we were debating about the 40 hour work week and child labor restrictions. These ruin our free markets and company profits AM I RITE?"

Fuck no. I am not arguing that paid sick leave would ruin company profits. Company profits will always take care of themselves, at the cost of consumers and employees. Remember, you cannot harm the rich, they are already rich. If you regulate them to hell they will just shutdown and liquidate the company, they will still be rich; but their employees will be unemployed and their customers will starve.

That said, the 40 hour work week and child labor restrictions were not put in place to help workers, but to secure competitive advantage of large corporations against their smaller competitors. Big factories tended to use bigger machines which were too complex for child maintenance and employed American workers which already worked 40 hour work weeks, as per their contracts. Meanwhile, their smaller competitors tended to be more labor intensive with older machines which required child maintenance and employed immigrant labor on a 60 hour week.

The outcome was predictable: many small manufacturers went bankrupt, immigrant wages fell, the remaining manufacturers had to buy new machines and fixed a 40 hour week, so immigrants not only faced a lower wage per hour but also a 33% cut in their weekly hours. But that's ok, because the native owned and native worked big corporations reaped massive profits. And all we care about are corporate profits, right? Is that what you are saying?

2/19/2009 10:35:06 AM

Quote :

"it is worth the potential risk having having an epidemic sweep through your office. "

Looking at the actual bill, it would also allow employees take paid sick days to stay home and take care of sick family members. It also allows them to take paid time off to handle the legal effects of domestic violence with them or family members.

This opens up politiciabns to add more and more "good" things that employers will have to cover under the guise of keeping the country's health care costs down....
-Employees paid for going for routine medical/dental exams.
-Employees paid when babysitters don't show up and they have to stay home.
-Employees paid when they need to stay home to care for just 'friends'

And don't tell me that the state doesn't start with mildly intrusive laws and then gradually add onto it to make it more and more intrusive.

Again, looking at the bill, An employer can only demand verification when the absence goes longer than three days. The employer cannot ask what sickness the employee has. The employee cannot be forced to replace themselves when he calls out.

The bill provides employees with all sorts of legal weapons to use against the employer, but all the employer can expect from employees are "good faith" efforts.

It's not the employer's financial responsibility to cover other people's health care costs. This is a bad bill and needs to be dumped.

2/19/2009 10:43:07 AM

They said 56 hours, so the employer could be like you get 4 hours of pay for every sick day taken? And let someone come in for a half-day for those days to offset the labor, and just wing the other 4 hours? I say you can make a plan to cover such situations and not even increase overhead costs.

All in all, I am not sure how I feel about the bill yet, but it seems like it could help and hurt.

[Edited on February 19, 2009 at 11:04 AM. Reason : /]

2/19/2009 11:03:02 AM

Quote :

"...this law effectively forces the restaurant to hire an extra 1.3 full time employees per year. "

where are these mythical places where every single person uses every single sick day available?

2/19/2009 11:36:24 AM

come sit down in my office and show me how to replace any of my staff with half days, i would love to hear your plan.

if I could get away with only having anyone work 4 hours then I would already be operating with a reduced staff and saving on labor.

if I was forced to do this then I would have to increase the staff and cut wages so that I could afford this. it wouldn't be so bad after I made those changes, but I don't think thats the consequence they are hoping for.

someone in this thread said, "its just a week" no, its more than a week, 5 days is a week. I could understand protecting their job and not allowing employers to replace them for being sick, but forcing them to pay for it is ridiculous.

other people are saying that it won't be bad because you can make your employees prove they are sick. except you can't, you start getting into major privacy issues when you go down that line of questioning.

2/19/2009 11:52:22 AM

this law would also affect hiring practices, as it is now even more in the employers interest to only hire young, healthy employees with healthy families

2/19/2009 11:57:53 AM

logic. reasoning. end of thread.

2/19/2009 12:25:11 PM

Quote :

"That said, the 40 hour work week and child labor restrictions were not put in place to help workers, but to secure competitive advantage of large corporations against their smaller competitors. Big factories tended to use bigger machines which were too complex for child maintenance and employed American workers which already worked 40 hour work weeks, as per their contracts. Meanwhile, their smaller competitors tended to be more labor intensive with older machines which required child maintenance and employed immigrant labor on a 60 hour week. The outcome was predictable: many small manufacturers went bankrupt, immigrant wages fell, the remaining manufacturers had to buy new machines and fixed a 40 hour week, so immigrants not only faced a lower wage per hour but also a 33% cut in their weekly hours. But that's ok, because the native owned and native worked big corporations reaped massive profits. And all we care about are corporate profits, right? Is that what you are saying?"

Are you honestly trying to argue that 40 hour work weeks negatively effect workers hourly and salaried here in america and it was all a big ploy by the big corporations??

Are you delusional?

Sure it probably did have a side effect of helping larger manufacturers. Please explain also how a 40 hour work weeks hurts unemployment. If a company has 140 hours of labor to do and they can not bring out the whip to force two employees to work 12 hours for 6 days without paying OT than they will hire an extra worker from the workforce pool. I am certain that some employees felt underemployed if they needed additional hours. If a worker needs more money than he can get a 2nd job or work OT which there tends to be from my experience in manufacturing and from my observation of my dads business (except in rough economic times).


The big corporations can line their packets extra deep if it means i get to spend an extra 20 hours attending to my own business.

Why don't we just scrap the department of labor as well as all protections, rules, and regulations that currently exist to protect employees. We'll let the free market sort em out. This works so well in South East Asia and Nicaragua. I love my sweat shop produced clothing.

[Edited on February 19, 2009 at 12:33 PM. Reason : l]

2/19/2009 12:27:04 PM

Quote :

"Are you honestly trying to argue that 40 hour work weeks negatively effect workers hourly and salaried here in america and it was all a big ploy by the big corporations??"

It is part of the public record that this nations largest manufacturers were the biggest sponsors of and lobbied hard for the legislation in question. That the legislation was also supported by the white middle-class citizenry does not change the effects. This, like so much of government legislation, was a product of the baptist-bootlegger public choice theory.

Quote :

"Please explain also how a 40 hour work weeks hurts unemployment. If a company has 140 hours of labor to do and they can not bring out the whip to force two employees to work 12 hours for 6 days without paying OT than they will hire an extra worker from the workforce pool."

The laws rendered the previous model of production unsound. As such, the employers did not have the option of hiring additional workers; they went bankrupt. While society needs the products of the factories in question, it does not need to get them from the factories in question. Your assertion holds true only if production remains constant, which it did not do. Like I said, production shifted from the small immigrant manufacturers to the large native manufacturers. They did not suffer long, of course, as immigrant laborers went to work in the cottage trades which at that time were unregulated. Of course, the progressives followed them there, and in the 30s even these family run businesses found themselves regulated into non-existance by the NRA, until the supreme court overturned it.

And are you suggesting Nicaragua does not have a department of labor? More to the point, are you suggesting companies in Nicaragua are free in their deployment of land, labor, and capital? No, compared to Nicaragua, America is a haven of economic freedom for business owners.

2/19/2009 12:59:55 PM

The only economic justification I can see is if there is a real public health issue. While this is possible I seems sketchy to me. I would have to see the evidence.

The case would be that some employees prefer no sick leave in exchange for higher wages. Employers theoretically should be indifferent between the two. However, these employees are imposing a cost on everyone else by spreading disease.

However, if the purpose here is to expand benefits to employees my expectation is that this would be offset by lower wages.

2/19/2009 1:10:49 PM

Quote :

"where are these mythical places where every single person uses every single sick day available?"

Have you EVER worked in food service or blue collar level positions?

2/19/2009 1:12:27 PM

Quote :

"Have you EVER worked in food service or blue collar level positions?"

I've never had sick days at all in those positions.

2/19/2009 1:49:40 PM

^That's their point. Give people in those jobs sick days and they will find a way to use them all up. Guaranteed.

2/19/2009 7:16:46 PM

^That's understandable but at the same time, there are people who really need this. As I said I am not sure how I feel about it just yet. The only qualm I has about this so far is passing on the cost to the customers. That I feel fairly confident that any business should be able to handle this if they are managing their resources correctly.

[Edited on February 19, 2009 at 7:27 PM. Reason : /]

2/19/2009 7:24:45 PM

I don't want my burger flipper at McD's coming in with strep throat spreading his germs on my burger bun b.c he has to get his wage in order to pay his babies mama's child support

2/19/2009 7:48:59 PM

It is immoral for the gov't to force one person to pay benefits to someone else.

A job should be a mutual decision between the employer and potential employee. If the employee cannot convince the employer to give him paid time off or any other goody, then he should seek employment somewhere else.

2/19/2009 8:09:46 PM

yet you wonder why people like Castro and other communist dictators are able to come to power.


Free markets are good yes.
Though if the big corporations can lobby to get favorable policies and laws past; whats wrong with the voting population that consist of your every day laborers putting political pressure on our leaders for policies and acts that benefit them?

The NC legislature did not just pull this out of their ass as some part of a liberal socialist conspiracy. We pride ourselves on being a democracy right? If our citizens disagree with this than we need to let our congressman know and/or not re-elect them. Otherwise Uncle Moneybags big bank CEO is out of luck that the majority of american people feel that today's modern society should provide for its people adequate sick leave than they are SOL. If all the fear mongering you prescribe really has the negative results you predict; than as unemployment rises and citizen wealth decreases popular opinion will change.

2/19/2009 9:38:44 PM

^x13 Scroll backup and reread pooljobs post, then move on. This thread has already peaked, the rest is all downhill.

Its just another socialist bill that sounds good on paper but never so great in reality. People will abuse this system guaranteed. Hell you don't even have to be sick to get paid. Just say your taking care of your wife or child or friend. Actually you don't have to tell anyone shit unless your taking off more than three days at a time.

Here is what is going to happen if the bill is passed, speaking very generally. Businesses will be the first to feel the effect. Their liabilities will increase, there is no debating this. Eventually they will offset this initial increase in liabilities by either hiring less people, lowering salaries or raising prices to compensate. All this cockamy socialist BS always trickles down to the working man. On the bright side, I will never have to worry about anyone cooking my Little Thick Burger with a stuffy nose ever again though.

[Edited on February 19, 2009 at 11:09 PM. Reason : -]

2/19/2009 11:05:14 PM

Employment should be a contract between the employer and employee.

If the employer does not want to give certain benefits to the employee, they should not be forced to do so.

The government has no place in this contract between individuals.

2/19/2009 11:28:56 PM

^^ i think its more of a populist thing, i don't think its very socialist

^ i kind of disagree, i think the government has an interest in protecting the well being of citizens and employees I just think this is really overstepping that role and will have a negative result

Quote :

"I don't want my burger flipper at McD's coming in with strep throat spreading his germs on my burger bun b.c he has to get his wage in order to pay his babies mama's child support"

so take your business to companies with good policies on this issue. i know that i send employees home if they are obviously sick because i don't want them getting everyone else sick, there are surely lots of companies that do the same.
im also a pretty decent guy, if missing a day from work meant that a good, loyal employee was going to have a real problem making ends meet i would probably try to find ways for him to make it up or help him out; and i am able to do that because the government doesn't cripple my decision making.

2/19/2009 11:49:27 PM