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
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.
I mean depending on what that’s 80% of it could be the difference between affordability and lack thereof
Thanks, compared to 5 days, 6 weeks subjectively feels infinite (for an average healthy employee)
It’s important to point out, this is not people deciding not to come to work for 6 weeks and all is good, government picks up the tab. You actually have to be sick, that is to say doctor opens this leave, confirms there’s a need for one, etc.
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.
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
Tiny victories, really…
Yes. I want full blown socialism in America but that isn’t going to happen over night. The unions fought for our 40 hour work week, weekends, and more and those were small victories.
This was a small victory and I will take it. It makes the living conditions od California better and this may get the ball going.
I don’t see it as a good thing that the most progressive state in the country can barely shit out 5 days of sick leave for people, and it took decades to pull off.
That just shows how entrenched neoliberal economics is in the US.
This type of thinking is how and why socialism is never coming to America. It won’t happen over one night. Take the small victories. Don’t expect perfection because that will be your downfall.
Bullshit. The fact it took this long to get two extra days of sick leave is why we won’t have socialism in America. It’s not because people don’t want it enough. It’s because rich bastards get in the way, every step of the way.
You go ahead and celebrate over getting tossed a crumb. I’m staying angry until we get what we deserve.
USA seems rather barbaric in that light
Wasn’t there a post on some “ask”-community a couple of days ago with a question like “If you could live in a socialist country, would you?”. And I think the implied socialism is something like this?
Hahahaha Germany a socialist country!
Our great public wellfare system including healthcare, pensions etc. are called Rhine-Capitalism for a reason. In fact our conservatives, the Christian Democrats build it.
What these people call “socialism” was build by the German religious conservatives (admittedly to keep the social democrats and unions from gaining even more power), which might explain why we keep laughing so hard at Fox News Fuckwits calling Germany a socialist country.
"look at these SOCIALISTS they put up some guardrails to prevent people from easily falling into the giant meatgrinder that says CAPITALISM. "
It should be noted even from the most barbaric economist brain measurement like GDP that Germany outperforms the US on that front and its partly because of these policies that prevent peoples minds and bodies from turning into paste like they do in the US.
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.
Even my shitty little country has universal healthcare and paid sick leave. Employees can call in sick for couple of days, after which they have to open up a sick leave with the doctor. At this point government picks up paying them good chunk of their salary. After two months there’s a mandatory panel of doctors meeting which decides if leave needs to be extended further.
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.
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.
What kind of success is that? Asking this coming from a country where we have 6 weeks of sick days before the income is covered by the health care system.
If you tell someone who is starving that you won’t give them any food, they might decide there’s nothing left to lose and try to fight you for their survival.
If instead you give that person just a bit of food - not enough to actually feed them, just enough to give them hope of satiation - rather than getting a knife in the ribs you might just get a grateful handshake and thanks.
They’ll still starve, but with far less struggle.
It’s that kind of success.
Small. It’s one state and anywhere run by Republicans is stuck at the federal minimum of 0. This number will never go higher because Republican legislators won’t vote for it because they hate workers, and Democratic legislators are from states that already implemented higher wages and sick days so it’s a red state problem.
It’s the same way with cannabis legalization and I expect they’ll do the same with abortion.
I have no idea. Answering this coming from a country where social security will cover income after 3 days of sickness.
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.
Wow, five whole days!? Fuck off.
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)
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.
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.
CA has 1 hour for every 30 hours, though yeah you can only earn 48 per year. It’s bullshit
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
From what kind of sickness they expect to recover in 5 days? Cut finger?
i guess you could get the flu (if it’s not too bad - once had it for about two weeks several years ago).
but then you better NOT need anything else, all year. hopefully you don’t have kids either.
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.
Five days? Even a lot of smaller, unregulated businesses here in the Phillipines offer way more than that.
When this happened several years back and they gave us two sick days, our company just went ahead and shifted two of our PTO days to sick days.
