Massachusetts Paid Leave Coalition

Retail is one of the fastest growing sectors in the United States and a core part of the New York City economy. This study, conducted in the fall of 2011, sought to track the wages and working conditions of frontline non-managerial workers in New York’s booming retail industry. We interviewed workers employed at non-union large stores and national chains from high-end 5th Avenue fashion to off-brand clothing retailers on Fordham Road in the Bronx. Because New York is the retail capital of the United States, and the majority of respondents worked in stores with a national presence, this study paints a portrait of the practices and conditions experienced by retail workers across the country.

Millions of Americans have to go to work when they fall ill, a phenomenon known as presenteeism. But mandatory paid sick leave is healthier for us all. Connecticut just became the first state in the nation to require employers to provide workers with paid sick days. The new law — which also allows paid leave for a sick child or spouse — is controversial. Opponents attack it as big government run amok and say it will kill jobs. But it is the right thing to do, both as a matter of humane treatment of workers and public health. And while the law doesn’t cover everyone, it’s a step in the right direction and other states should follow Connecticut’s lead.

Paid sick leave should become part of the accepted responsibility of running a business in Massachusetts. To me, this is both humane and smart. A simple, consistent paid sick leave policy would make for a better work environment defined both in terms of quality of life and, long term, the bottom line. From the very beginning, Cape Air, the airline I founded, has offered paid time off for all employees – as have many successful businesses across the region and state. I can say from hard-won experience that this “benefit” does not break the bank. It is a minimal cost, often returned in spades when a grateful, trusted, productive employee returns to work.

As the holiday season for dining out and office parties at restaurants begins, the guide makes it easy for consumers and companies to evaluate more than 150 restaurants and national chains based on a number of key criteria:- Do they provide paid sick days to ensure that those who handle and serve food are not passing on illnesses?- Do they pay at least $9 per hour to non-tipped workers and at least $5 per hour to tipped workers?

I was encouraged to read about efforts to require paid sick days be provided to all Massachusetts workers. Sen. Dan Wolf should be roundly applauded for supporting this bill. This is a step that is critical to ensure health of working people, children and families of working people and the health of the public.

The head of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce is quoted in a front-page Nov. 19 report as being opposed to a bill pending in the Legislature to require seven days' paid sick leave. I understand the chamber's concern about new requirements on businesses, but this bill seems so clearly in the public interest — providing tangible benefits to employers and employees alike — that the opposition makes no sense. What worker wants to come to work only to find a colleague sneezing and coughing?

More than a dozen years ago, the nonprofit MotherWoman got off to a deceptively modest start, with a drop-in support group for mothers in Amherst. Annette Cycon, who founded the organization with a friend, told the Advocate a couple of years ago that they started the group to offer a safe, supportive setting in which to help women address the isolation and self-criticism that's too often a part of new parenthood. "Like everyone else, parenting really brought us to our knees," Cycon said. That effort soon mushroomed; today, MotherWoman facilitates mothers' groups in all four western counties, some open to the general public and others for specific communities (including one for incarcerated moms at the women's correctional center in Chicopee). The organization also trains volunteers interested in facilitating new groups, and works with health-care professionals to help them recognize and address postpartum depression and other mood disorders in new moms.

As a 30-year veteran behind the wheel of a school bus, Terry Brinig has fearlessly stared down her share of stir-crazy kids eager to challenge authority. But what really scares her is what she cannot see. Everyday after her multiple runs of elementary, middle and high school students, Brinig wipes down her handrails with anti-bacterial wipes. She figures that driving eight busloads of 71 passengers makes her the incubator for at least 568 sets of germs. “I’m the common denominator,” she says. “In the winter, when all the windows are up and there’s no ventilation, the heat is blowing microbes all over the place.”

Seattle is set to become the third U.S. city to require businesses to provide paid sick days for their workers, after a City Council vote Monday that supporters said could provide momentum for establishing similar laws across the country. The council voted 8-1 to mandate that all but the smallest companies - those with fewer than five workers - give at least five paid days off a year to employees who are sick, need to care for a sick family member, or who are victims of domestic abuse and need to take time off to assist law enforcement or attend court hearings. Businesses with more than 250 workers would have to provide nine days.

It's something most of us who work for a company, corporation or school take for granted. There is now a push on Beacon Hill to legislate paid sick days something 1-million Massachusetts workers currently do without. Attorney Elizabeth Toulan, coordinator of Mass. Paid Leave Coalition, joined the FOX 25 Morning News team to discuss the bill.