Report underlines lack of paid sick days

An estimated 42 percent of Hawaii’s private sector employees, or 184,237 workers, don’t receive any paid sick days, according to a new report released Wednesday by a national advocacy group pushing for federal and state laws requiring employers to provide minimum sick leave benefits.

The National Partnership for Women and Families, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., hopes the statistics, which were broken down for all states and culled from national census data, will help pressure Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act.

The national legislation would require businesses employing 15 or more workers to provide seven paid sick days annually that employees can use for their own illness, to take care of a sick family member, or seek help for domestic violence or sexual assault.

“Paid sick days play a critically important role in making sure that workers can take time off if they get the flu or other illness without losing a paycheck or in some cases even losing their job,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president of the National Partnership for Women and Families.

Low-wage service workers are most likely to have no paid sick days, with 90 percent of restaurant workers nationally lacking the benefit. There are more than 60,000 restaurant workers in Hawaii, according to the group’s statistics.

There has been growing political momentum to mandate paid sick leave, with four states — Connecticut, California, Massachusetts and Oregon — now requiring employers to provide workers with the benefit, according to the nonprofit’s statistics. At the local level, 19 jurisdictions, including San Francisco, Seattle and New York, have passed laws ensuring sick leave benefits.

However, recent efforts in Hawaii have failed. A bill proposed during Hawaii’s last legislative session ending in April would have required restaurants with 50 or more employees to provide six paid sick days to full-time workers annually, which could be rolled over to the following year if unused.

However, House Bill 496 failed to pass during the session amid opposition from businesses and their lobbyists.

The Hawaii Chamber of Commerce submitted testimony arguing that the mandate could slow job growth, would create an administrative burden for businesses that would have to track the sick days and could be abused by workers wanting to use sick days for vacation time.

Rep. Mark Nakashima (D, Kukuihaele-Laupahoehoe-North Hilo), chairman of the House Labor and Public Employment Committee, and Sen. Gil Keith-Agaran, chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee, both said they would consider another push this upcoming legislative session to require employers to cover sick leave.

Keith-Agaran (D, Waihee-Wailuku-Kahului) said last year’s bill was relatively modest in terms of what it provided workers, but the opposition from the business community was stiff nonetheless.

“I think they had a philosophical objection to the idea of mandating it,” he said.

For more information on the statistics, go to nationalpartnership.org/researchlibrary/campaigns/psd/hawaii.pdf.