Workers in California will soon receive a minimum of five days of paid sick leave annually, instead of three, under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Wednesday.
The law, which takes effect in January, also increases the amount of sick leave workers can carry over into the following year. Newsom said it demonstrates that prioritizing the health and well-being of workers “is of the utmost importance for California’s future.”
“Too many folks are still having to choose between skipping a day’s pay and taking care of themselves or their family members when they get sick,” Newsom said in a statement announcing his action.
A good start, but five days is still a laughable amount. That’s literally one illness, one time being sick.
Good thing there’s only one flu season … oh wait.
laughs in german 🤣
Infinite sick days
Not true - you do not get infinite sick days
You get your regular salary for up to 6 weeks, after that there is a steep drop in pay - since you receive „sick pay“ then. After 72 weeks sick pay ends. Then you might be eligible for social security.
“Steep drop” means 80% of your normal pay.
Cries in American
Thats the ugliest of cries
I mean depending on what that’s 80% of it could be the difference between affordability and lack thereof
No - not that easy. it is 70% of your pre tax income with a maximum of 90% your net income. How deep the cut actually is depends on several factors. One factor: There is a maximum amount you can receive - no matter how high your income was. If you earn well and cross that threshold, you will receive way less than the official percentages. To compensate for that you have to get a private insurance.
Thanks, compared to 5 days, 6 weeks subjectively feels infinite (for an average healthy employee)
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The Employer pays the first 6 weeks, not the government.
That is also not completely correct.
You can get infinite sick days. It just has to be a different illness every 6 weeks. (not repeating the same year)
If you stay in the first 6 weeks threshold you are technically correct - but good luck finding an employer that will keep employing you. You will get sent to an doctor appointed by your employer and if you are „simulating“ you will get fired easily.
A year in Norway. 26 weeks after the last sick leave, the quota starts again.
Cries in a different US state where our company busted us from 40 hours of sick time to 24 to make every plant in the country equal to California’s minimum because it’s the only state with one of our facilities that has a minimum. I’m curious to see if this ends up bringing all our plants up to 40 hours or they hope none of us lowly factory workers pays attention to this sort of thing. I’ll be asking at the next communication meeting.
You know it will be the latter, right?
Yeah, I know where I work.
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English is descriptive not prescriptive, nobody owns the English language nor has a more correct version, and that’s coming from Oxford University.
Sounds like you don’t laugh in any language.
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Thank you for not guffawing in french.
I fart in your general direction!
I spit on your fart!
Your mother was a hamster
Hon hon hon
Sick leave in the UK is still pretty shit unless your company covers it or you get a generous amount of paid sick days. SSP is a pittance and needs rethinking and employers attitudes towards illness needs sorting out (pay rises being related to illness being one thing).
Meanwhile in Germany…
You’re legally entitled to six weeks of continuous sick leave paid by your employer, after which your health insurer will take over the costs. If you’ve had sick leave for the same illness multiple times in the same year, these days will be accumulated. After six weeks of regular paid sick leave, you’ll receive Krankengeld (lit. ‘sick money’) for a maximum of 90 percent of your wage after taxes for up to 72 weeks.
Yes, true, but i will take this win.
Newsom increased the minimum wage for fast food workers and now this? I will take these little victories
Continuous sick leave is different from sick days. Many states require sick leave, and the US guarantees 12 weeks leave through FMLA, though it’s unpaid, with the government picking up payments after that (iirc). Regardless, a metric ton of companies offer paid long-term sick leave by just carrying insurance policies that pay out your salary if you have a doctor’s note.
I have unlimited vacation time which also applies to sick days, and the company pushes people to use it. I’m looking to have taken around six weeks this year.
I’m aware this is not a common occurrence, but it’s not as though there’s absolutely no laws around this and nobody has paid sick days at all.
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The US Federal Government offers 13 paid sick days a year (that rollover indefinitely)…and between 13 and 26 vacation days (depending on service time)…and all federal holidays off paid. It’s not quite on the level of Europe, but it’s a damn sight better than most of the rest of the country.
It’s more than that…6 hrs a pay period for 26 pay periods, divide that by 8 to get days…19.5 sick days a year.(I was wrong about that, but still)
Federal employees have one of the strongest unions in the country. But it’s not like they can help people outside their own union.
The voters need to elect politicians will to make this stuff legislation for every American worker.
It’s 4hrs a pay period for 26 pay periods for sick leave, at least in my command. But I’m interested if this varies across the government…
Yep, you’re right.
No idea why I was thinking 6
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Federal employees are immediately terminated if they strike, so the unions are basically just workplace clubs.
Government agencies simply pay more and have good benefits because they don’t want to deal with turnover.
Even by Australian standards that is still pretty good, except it’s generally 20-30 days annual leave here in any permanent FT job and 10-15 sick days, some of which is already accrued at beginning of employment.
Just to be clear they’re talking about jobs working for the federal government.
Yeah nah I got that. I understand they describe a deal that most likely at the upper end for most working Americans, but still below the minimum guarantees in EU and ANZ.
five fucking sick days is still COMICALLY AND DISGUSTINGLY low. FUCK this out of control capitalism bs
Wait. You guys don’t get more than 5 days a year??
If its true I made the right decision to move in UK rather than US.
Most states don’t even get 5, or 3.
The states that have mandates are (usual suspects incoming):
Arizona - 40 hours
California - 40 hours
Colorado - 48 hours
Connecticut - 40 hours
D.C. - 7 days
Maryland - 64 hours hrs
Massachusetts - 40 hrs
Michigan - 40 hrs
Nevada - 0.01923 hours per hour worked (works out to approximately 40 hours if you work a standard 40hrs/week, 52 weeks/yr
New Jersey - 40 hrs
New Mexico - 64 hrs
New York - 56 hrs
Oregon - 40 hrs
Rhode Island - 40 hrs
Vermont - 40 hrs
Washington - 40 hrs
Some cities/counties have their own requirements but I’m not going to list those. I wish the US did better on Healthcare, but, as with everything, it’s the blue states dragging the country forward kicking and screaming.
Wait until you hear that 5 is more than most and most states aren’t required to give you any. Federal level has no law for sick leave and it’s up to states to make one.
Some companies are better than others, like my father has 5 days but each day counts up to 5 consecutive days off under 1 time being sick which to me is way more reasonable.
Oh thank goodness! a whole extra TWO DAYS! Can ya spare it?
the fact that we have a system in place where you can run out of sick days at all is disgusting.
In Denmark theres no set amount of sick days per year.
I was at a job that had sick “periods”, like being sick once could stretch several days, right? Thats still just being sick 1 time.
Yea same in Germany. I think you can be sick for six weeks and still receive your full wage. After that health insurance pays you at least 70% and at most 90% of your income. Buuuut the money you receive from your insurance is tax free (it may increase the taxes you will have to pay in the future though)
Wow, five whole days!? Fuck off.
Surprised CA is behind the curve so much on this. Washington gives an hour for every 40 worked which amounts to 5.5 days per year if you are working a 40 hour work week. I think that was passed like a decade ago.
I don’t think you know what the curve actually looks like if you think this is “behind the curve”. The majority of states have 0 paid sick leave by law, CA already had 3 days and is increasing it to 5.
I guess I should have rephrased it up at that Washington is so far ahead of the curve (in the US). The whole country is easy behind the curve compared to everywhere else.
Just made me check mine. I’m in a good union and earn 2.46 hours of sick per 40 hours of work and 3.28 hours of leave per 40 hours of work. A year of work is 2498 hours for us for reference.
I also get 48 hours of other leave, 16 hours of leave per each of 13 holidays, and I can take my overtime as 1.5 hours of leave per hour worked instead of pay. We also get 240 hours parental leave for a new child.
Leave accrues whenever we are in a paid status on straight time.
That’s better than most of the country but behind newer companies that are attracting talent by giving them unlimited vacation/sick in writing.
Either way the US seriously needs to regulate this and require much more. It’s pathetic how behind it is compared a lot of the world.
Unions work
CA has 1 hour for every 30 hours, though yeah you can only earn 48 per year. It’s bullshit
From what kind of sickness they expect to recover in 5 days? Cut finger?
These are state-mandated days off, which are in addition to any provided by the workplace.
In NY state for instance, our employees have an entire extra week off work they can take than elsewhere in the company. If they don’t use these days, they are paid out for them at their normal pay rate.
Usually those other days though are just vacation days.
Most other countries have those days on top of unlimited sick time.
Those are specifically sick days in NY State.
Can employers say you can use your pto for sick time or does it have to be in addition to pto?
I think it’s in addition. I say that because I worked for my company in two different states and they have a special PTO category in their time tracking / HR software for CA sick time.
The company I work for just merged PTO and sick time into one. Every 40h you gain an additional hour of PTO, so every two months you get 1 more sick/PTO day.
Wow, laughably low
MURICA!
Since there’s no minimum PTO requirement, yes but it has to be marked as sick time. Most employers in a state like California though know that they’re going to be the bottom of the barrel if they don’t offer more so they do.
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I left reddit partly cuz of this tone, and im feeling that lemmy will be better if i cannot hear folks like you. Consider working on a less adversarial tone in future comments unless you’re an argument junkie
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workers rights improved when workers stopped doing their job and started wrecking shit, not by accepting garbage like this because its ‘not as bad as the other guy’
Sure it’s less bad, but it’s still pretty dismal.
Then again it’s also mind boggling that you guys can’t get medical care for serious issues without the risk of bankruptcy, or that your employers hold the keys to whether or not you can afford to get medical care.
Five days? Even a lot of smaller, unregulated businesses here in the Phillipines offer way more than that.
What happens if you are sick more than that?
Unpaid time off if you’re lucky.
Fired if you’re not.
Uhh… how is there not a guillotine in front of every state capitol building?
I burned out and have been sick for half a year. I’ve begun working a bit again (aiming for 9 hours / week).
Full pay throughout.
Do Americans not realize just how badly they’re getting shafted?
Too many boomers think it’s a necessary evil, because they used to be able buy a house with minimum wage.
“If I had to do it, so should you…”
I get that they screwed over every subsequent generation, but they’re all 60+ at this point. You can just beat them up. What are they gonna do? Be old at you?
More seriously, enough people are impacted by this that if you organized you could have activists hounding the elected representatives every hour of every day. E.g. drown them in lobby visit requests. Also just show up and knock on doors. Be disruptive. Your state is trying to squeeze every last drop of blood out of you. It’s not acceptable.
They vote.
I can’t tell if you’re being genuine or sarcastic
Genuine.
Americans can’t even be bothered to vote. You think they’ll build a guillotine? 🤣
The US political system is a Kafkaesque nightmare of despair and loathing. I’m not sure I’d vote either. That’s why I’m advocating direct action. Any politician who votes for people to be miserable and die, should not be allowed a moment of peace.
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Do Americans not realize just how badly they’re getting shafted?
Most of us really don’t
Plenty of us do and we’re all still doing basically nothing about it despite being aware 🙃
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Just to really drive the point home:
About half my salary is covered by the state. The rest is insurance.
That’s about $2800 I’m legally entitled to. If we assume 35% tax that gets me ~$1820 every month for 6 months while being sick that I’m guaranteed. Rent is ~700, so I’d have about $1000 for food and necessities.
I’m not sure you could get a closet to sleep in for $700 in California at this point
It’s social housing in the capital city. 60m2
Tenant democracy. No rent hikes unless it’s necessary or we want to take a loan out for renovations and such.
Sadly in the US many of the companies that control large amounts of housing are all using the same software to calculate how to all raise prices as much as possible every year without having people move out. Around 2010 I moved from a studio with a shared kitchen that was $650 to a one bedroom for $900. Those studios (20m2) now start at $1,000, and the one bedrooms (50m2) start at $2,240.
No, because there is way more to life than just emergency medical leave.
For most people they’re not going to be using that leave, they’d much rather have the money instead of it being taxed from them. Additionally it is much easier to get a job in the US and it generally pays better.
I don’t know what country you live in, but ones that have extensive labor protections often have very high youth unemployment (people with little experience can’t get hired), because businesses are unwilling to take risks on potentially bad employees if they can’t terminate them or have to pay out a lot of money to do so.
It’s popular to demonise America, but there are also a lot of problems the US doesn’t have.
I live in Denmark.
Overall unemployment is at about 2.6%
Youth unemployment is about 7-8%, which is lower than, or about on level with, USA from the numbers I can find.
There’s also way more to life than work.
We’re entitled to 5 weeks paid vacation, 3 of which must be consecutive if requested. Most people have an additional week from union contracts. Parents have a collective 48 weeks paid maternity leave.Don’t have to worry about homelessness. Don’t have to worry about healthcare costs.
You’re getting a raw deal, even if you don’t realize it.
Literally proving my point, Denmark had all these problems and then they privatised it, and created incentives for employment.
“Don’t have to worry about homelessness”
Neither do Americans. The vast majority of Americans will never be homeless, the vast majority of people who complain about it are rich kids on social media trying to get sympathy.
“There’s also way more to life than work”- The biggest factor in quality of life (in a wealthy country) is your job ( or less commonly your parents money). Also if you make more (and pay less in taxes), all those benefits can be provided from your savings. And your savings account is far more flexible than earmarked money from the government.
There is a reason why people want to work and live in America and not … Denmark. The ease to make money and the flexibility to spend it to maximise your quality of life is far greater than most countries.
I don’t think you realize just how close to homelessness a majority of the people in the US are. Most people here live paycheck to paycheck, not able to save any wealth whatsoever.
Nope, not “not able to”. They just want there nice cars and homes. You can easily save money in the US, it’s all just rich kids who want to live the same lifestyle there parents raised them in after they (the parents) worked for 20 years.
I personally know many homeless people and have been homeless myself. We are in the far minority, even most poor communities aren’t in danger of being homeless. Homeless people tend to be drug addicts or violent people that others don’t want to help (for obvious reasons).
There is a reason why people want to work and live in America and not … Denmark.
Fucking Americans, man. 😂
Well you keep making all these claims about how America is a hell scape, when it’s actually a more desirable country than the one you are promoting.
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you get fired & end up among the millions of homeless Americans, along with hospital bills. such is life in capitalist America
Go to work anyway.
Example:
Frito Lay originally gave us 7 days sick + 7 days as mandated. Something changed (legalese, idk), this dropped to 7 days total for the calendar year which was the CA days + company days (they were being generous). Which, when played out, ended up with people getting strikes against them after the CA mandated days were used up, as it was seen as repetitive behavior. If they really didn’t like you, good fucking luck. They would basically use it as an easy way to get people fired over repeat “offenses”.
This was a while ago, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy, but it was overall, a huge fucking joke.
For me, personal time comes next then PTO. Personal time is meant for a variety of things but we get 16 hours a year and can be taken in one hour increments. PTO is basically just vacation time and is taken in half day increments.
