Is this any wonder? Lower paid work often has ridiculous rules about being off sick, if it even offers paid sick time.
This is the inevitable conclusion of the race to the bottom in the US over the last 43 years.
This is the inevitable conclusion of the race to the bottom in the US over the last 43 years.
Can anyone chime in in defense of this? Is there a side to this I'm not seeing?
For example, last Thursday the Supreme Court just ruled that unions can be sued for losses caused by striking https://archive.is/0bYhe
But that is just the last pieces of labor's power getting washed away in the USA. Already things like sympathy strikes, which give labor actual power in Europe, are completely illegal.
The decision was 8-1.
Everyone seems to miss that the Court did not rule on the merits of the case. They rules on a procedural question. They ruled that the suit can go forward because intentional damage was within the realm of possibility.
Jackson dissented because she believed that NLRB has priority jurisdiction before other lawsuit venues.
No one on HN knows who is "right".
Instead, the employer contended in a lawsuit, “the drivers prompted the creation of the perishable product” and then waited until the concrete was inside the trucks before walking off the job.
The bar being set is intentionality in destroying property even through spoilage by setting up a situation to cause the spoilage intentionally. It’s a fairly minor erosion if it is at all.
The US is just anti-labor and in love with cheap consumables. Combined, we end up with a massive case of haves and have-nots. Vacation, sick leave, retirement accounts, medical care. It’s great if you’re rich (as damn near everybody on this forum is).
My brother in law is an auto mechanic here in the US. My uncle as well, but in Scotland. While they’re overall income is pretty close (solidly middle class) the amount of financial stress in the US is MUCH MUCH higher.
It’s so short-sighted. I’d happily pay another $30k/year or more in taxes for nationalized medical, lower college costs and other things most Europeans have.
And then they pay that extra through costs for imprisonment, homelessness and other stuff. And for healthcare the US pays almost twice as much per capita than other countries. It’s just dumb.
The average household income in the US is around 80k. That’s like 55k after taxes. Are you proposing they give up another 30k of that?
And between college loans and medical insurance, I probably pay close to that already. And on the medical side, I’d rather it went to a national program that didn’t tightly couple people to their employers.
My sister is a physical therapist. She has a doctorate. Her work fundamentally involves being close to other people and touching them. This is one of those fields that 10-20 years ago everybody said would be booming and highly lucrative. Her sick time is counted against her vacation time.
We live in a country completely captured by corporations.
If I can sit up in a chair, I log in and stay near my computer to attend meetings and answer emails.
Even then, the majority of my time goes to being sick.
In either of those cases, I would be scheduling a 1-on-1 with whoever is closest to being able to change that policy, in the smallest meeting room I can find, sitting right next to them, and then letting whatever symptoms of my illness take over. Gastric problems causing diarrhea or vomit? Congrats, I'm going to either literally poop in your lap, or vomit in your face. I'm coughing up phlegm? Sorry, here's a towel to wipe off your face. Something's bleeding? You might want to go get yourself tested for STDs and whatnot, gods know what depths I've been plumbing in my spare time. Severe pain such that I can barely sit? Your face looks nice and squishy to use as a stress ball.
They'll just turn down the meeting request, tell your supervisor what you've done and you'll suffer either real punishment or be unofficially 'punished'. You may even be fired because of "at-will" employment: Anyone can be fired for (almost) any reason at any time.
Generally you just don't get time off, or maybe you can take the time off without pay (if they're extra generous). Such is life in the USA, there is no response: You will do what the owners of capital say, or you will go hungry.
That's all there is to it.
Well, I'm not scheduling a 1-on-1 to discuss shitting in their lap. I'll dangle some kind of carrot they can't help but go for.
Sure, after, I will probably lose my job, that's understandable; We're well past the point of civility then anyhow -- after all, we're contemplating shitting in someone's lap or bleeding onto them to potentially pass blood-borne diseases to them.
> Generally you just don't get time off, or maybe you can take the time off without pay (if they're extra generous). Such is life in the USA, there is no response: You will do what the owners of capital say, or you will go hungry.
I'm well aware, as per your opening question -- I do live in the US. What I'm trying to get at is that it's long past time to be despondent about this. It's time to be angry. It's time to shit in _someones_ lap.
Over the years, for better and worse, the interpretation of what powers the federal government are given had expanded dramatically. Even so, compelling paid sick leave at the federal level would need to rely on the interstate commerce clause.
I'm all for paid sick leave, personally, but doing it in a way that actually passes conditional muster and isn't overturned by a court isn't as easy as saying "this is a good thing, why don't we do it?"
[0] https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/murder/is-murder-a-federal...
Why should the employer pay for work that isn't being done?
If you rent a car and it doesn't work, would you pay for it?
If you rent an apartment and its unfit for habitation, would you pay for it?
If you go to the store to buy a product and it's not there, would you pay for it?
It's different if the illness is work related, of course. And it's beneficial to society if people can be sick without worrying about losing income, but is that enough to make employers pay for it? And it also doesn't seem like equal pay for equal work if worker A is sick 2 days a year and worker B is sick 20 days a year, they do about the same amount of work on days they attend and get paid the same amount anually.
- Taking a business risk doesn’t leave you destitute.
- Getting unlucky due to health/climate/career doesn’t leave you on the streets.
You can either pay for such equality of outcome programs in taxes or by workplace policies. Provided the policy is economically reasonable and all employers are obliged to it - taxes or policy don’t matter much.
And there is already unemployment insurance. Whether it is enough and the fact that it doesn’t cover contract workers is a different issue.
Risks are good for society, we have buffer to absorb them provided you aren’t betting the farm with BoA. In which case, we really should have tighter regulations to stop people from betting the farm with BoA.
The rental car company has a fleet of cars, and they will put you in one that works. It happens, cars have many moving parts and they are known to break down - the rental company knows this and will replace the car in almost all cases. Nobody is paying for something that doesn't work, but the rental company pays to get the broken car fixed, which is part of their cost of doing business.
>If you rent an apartment and its unfit for habitation, would you pay for it?
There are laws about that, for very good reason. Nobody is forcing anyone to live in squalor, though it sometimes comes down to poor people not having money and living in bad situations. People absolutely can and have sued bad landlords, and the city steps in if the people speak up. I know I've had to get the city called out to address a situation before, and the landlord paid to make it right.
>If you go to the store to buy a product and it's not there, would you pay for it?
Come on now, this is getting ridiculous. This is a non-issue. If you pay for a product and don't receive it, then that's fraud and at worst you can sue to get your money back. Usually you just get your money back.
>Why should the employer pay for work that isn't being done?
This is much like the rental car in that the employer has to pay to keep the employees healthy. They employ people to do the work, and they need to be hired, on-boarded, trained, and gain experience in the role. People aren't like cars and can't be replaced as easily. The employer should understand this and much like the rental car company keeps a fleet of cars, the employer with more than 1 employee has them for continuity of business, and paying them while sick is part of what ensures they won't need to seek a different job that will pay them while sick. It helps retain a trained and dedicated worker. It's the cost of doing business. Or, the business can suffer and be understaffed because the employer didn't account for humans ever getting sick (which humans are known to do pretty often), so if the business wants to cut corners and not pay people, then they will end up being understaffed and their business will suffer. This is really basic business stuff.
So if the people, through the government, decree that an employer needs to pay for sick days, then that's how it would work.
After all, the company exists through the combined effort of citizens of the government! and the company trades in money that is issued by the government, and managed by the government through taxes.
Of course there's no reason the employer should have to pay directly. Why not have some sort of government program to cover people's illnesses? Or a new form of insurance? In the end, the public health improvement would be the same.
We can postulate all sorts of modern scenarios and ethics and laws and rights on top of that, but at the end of the day, if you want to have a society, everyone in it needs to be taken care of according to their own needs. Leave too many people behind and there will be upheaval.
Alternately, we could not have a society, but then there are no business owners in that scenario.
Of course this relies on being paid enough to be able to forgo some earnings, and not being financialized so hard such that a paycheck has been spent before it's even earned. So it can't scale in popularity due to the economic feedback loop designed to keep real wages low, and the financial system primarily based on debt.
Proposed bans on tipping actually went through the courts, with some southern states ruling to ban it. Eventually, the supreme court stepped in, and ensured tipping would be legal.
Anyway, modern labor laws evolved from that mess, so it's not surprising at all that paid time off is discretionary in some states.
I hear about workers not showing up for work from a cousin who manages a restaurant. They’ll hire someone, tell them they start Monday, and then Monday comes and the person doesn’t show up.
Or a chef who has a drug/drinking problem (extremely common in the industry) calling in “sick” last minute.
Obviously there are exceptions but I’m not convinced that lower pay = less reliable employee. Very possible it’s a correlation rather than causation.
Would all be easier with better health-care options and assurances of an improved social-saftey-net.
Work ethic, reliability, trustworthiness, etc are character traits that aren’t easily changed by a better HR policy or safety nets. Unreliable workers will still be unreliable regardless of how much they’re paid.
Aren't character traits that are encouraged by slave wages either. You care about these values? Employees care about money, "values" don't fill stomachs or pay the rent.
this is about getting paid. If I need money I'll show up to work even if I'm sick otherwise I don't get any money, I don't care about the rest, just like the employer doesn't care about me when I'm sick.
You really think that these food processing companies/restaurants pay employees enough to get some some of allegiance from them or something? that's absurd.
Lower pay means you may not be able to afford a car. If the public transport in your area is lousy, you'll be late more often.
Lower pay means if you can afford a car, it's more likely to be an old beater, and if it breaks down, and you're not 110% prepared to switch to public transport on a moment's notice, you'll be late or miss work.
Lower pay means a worse living situation. You're more likely to be in an old building, with a crappy landlord, who may not care about the asbestos in the ceiling, or the black mold in the walls, or the bedbugs, and then you're more likely to get sick.
Lower pay means you can't afford good food, which means you're more likely to get sick.
Lower pay means you can't afford regular doctor visits (especially since you're also much less likely to have any sick time—paid or not—in which to go to those visits), which means you're more likely to get sick.
Lower pay makes it much more likely that you're in a high-stress job—one where you're expected to jump for superiors and customers at a moment's notice, and be punished for trying to act like a human being—which means you're more likely to get sick.
Lower pay means you're more likely to be working multiple jobs, and thus getting too little sleep. That makes it more likely that you'll oversleep sometimes and miss your alarm, and be late or miss work.
I daresay I could go on...
The thing that concerns me the most is that when you go to a restaurant in the US, the majority of people there do not have any kind of health insurance, and therefore do not have access to affordable healthcare.
Paid sick leave fixes that problem specifically. Otherwise employees will show up even when they have the flu or any other disease in order to get paid and contaminate food.
Clearly you don't want these people to get a better compensation thus incentive not to show up to work when they are sick. This isn't a "social problem", whatever that weasel expression means, this is a compensation problem.
On the other hand, I have been the schmuck who went to work feeling awful and possibly contagious, because sick leave had been lumped in with vacation, and I might need to take some if my child (as happens a lot on introduction to day care) got sick.
Money does fix the social problem of having no money. Penicillin isn't in it as a wonder drug.
It just requires having trust in your employees not to rip you off, which you already have to have when hiring somebody who has skills you don't.
When a place I worked changed from sick leave to a Personal Time Off system, I didn't like it. I used to take sick leave when I was sick. After the change, I went to work if I was sick.
I never needed a doctor's note, because they trusted me when I said I was sick. I liked working at places where peope were trusted and trustworthy.
Surprisingly specific.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence this happened at the same time.
I would believe that if it weren't for the fact that top-level pay has significantly widened from the bottom-level pay.
50 years ago this class of people was <5% of people. Today it approaches 30%. The lower class has also shrunk. So this has come at an expense to the middle class.
It isn’t that the middle class is poorer but rather are closer to the lower class than upper middle. Before the middle class was much larger and more people were similar and people compared themselves that way.
This is why housing in some markets seems insane to people in other markets. And why middle class people are locked out when living in an upper middle area.
https://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/wLFPrat...
Lines up well at parts. It isn't the full explanation.
https://aneconomicsense.org/2016/10/14/the-structural-factor...