Proposal to mandate paid sick days gaining momentum (click here)
Bay State bill gains backers; employers wary
By Megan Woolhouse
Globe Staff / April 14, 2013
A nearly decade-long effort to require Massachusetts employers to offer paid sick days is gaining momentum as lawmakers pass similar proposals across the country....
...Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said the success of sick-pay proposals is a growing concern for his members, particularly as they deal with potentially costly state and federal health insurance requirements.
“We’re still struggling with issues related to being the first state to pass mandated health insurance,” he said. “We need to be wary of broad-brush new mandates.”
In Massachusetts, more than 900,00 private sector employees, or about one in three such workers, do not have paid sick leave, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a Washington think tank. These workers, primarily low-income, can lose pay — and sometimes their jobs — if they stay home because they or a family member are sick.
Elizabeth Grow of Amherst, a seasonal cafeteria worker, said that last year, when she needed to stay home with her sick daughter Estella, she was told she would lose her $10.50-an-hour job if she did not come work. Grow had to plead with her day-care provider, who only reluctantly agreed to take the ill 4-year-old that day.
“Most people don’t want to watch a child if they’re sick,” said Grow, adding that she went to work sick many times out of fear she would be fired. “There was no sick day policy, other than ‘Don’t miss any days.’ ”...
The Boston Marathon is today. It not void of incredible stories.
By John Powers
GLOBE STAFF
APRIL 15, 2013
She was supposed to make her marathon debut (click here) here three years ago, but life threw in a detour. What Serena Burla thought was a cranky hamstring turned out to be synovial sarcoma, a malignant soft-tissue growth as big as an egg. Had the cancer been lurking elsewhere it might have gone undetected longer. “But because it was in my leg, running saved my life,” she said....
The Boston Marathon is today. It not void of incredible stories.
GLOBE STAFF
APRIL 15, 2013
She was supposed to make her marathon debut (click here) here three years ago, but life threw in a detour. What Serena Burla thought was a cranky hamstring turned out to be synovial sarcoma, a malignant soft-tissue growth as big as an egg. Had the cancer been lurking elsewhere it might have gone undetected longer. “But because it was in my leg, running saved my life,” she said....
