7 ms·

Everyone should have paid sick leave so they don't have to choose between doing the right thing (staying home) and paying rent. Everyone should have a safe work

by davidw 7y ago

Everyone should have paid sick leave so they don't have to choose between doing the right thing (staying home) and paying rent. Everyone should have a safe working environment.

ajross 7y ago
Obviously you're being downvoted by the libertarians here, but possibly also by people who think this isn't relevant to the discussion. To those folks: it absolutely is. Employers are never going to get this right. Amazon specifically (and obviously they're not alone) is looking at a huge financial impact to "doing the right thing" here. Yes, we'd all want our employers to take this kind of safety seriously, and a few will, but most of them won't either because they don't care or because they're worried their competitors don't. Bezos isn't any different than anyone else here, really. Maybe someone will get to him to be kind, maybe they won't, but for employees that's just not something that's ever going to be a security guarantee. Realistically, governments are the only entities capable of providing this kind of security in extremis. Employers, at best, get this right (due to competetive pressure) during steady state situations. When the world blows up, they can't help.
- nostromo 7y ago
  If the government wants people to have something, the government should provide it, and provide it to everyone. Does the government want people to have healthcare? Then the government should pay for it, not require employers to pay for it. If the government wants people to have paid leave or a pension, then they should pay for that too. Imagine if we tied other benefits to employment. Maybe the government could require your company buy you a car and dinner every night. People need transportation and food, right? So lets make employers provide it! It's free for the government and legislators get to feel virtuous for providing it, when actually they have just offloaded their costs to someone else. It's madness. The government should provide these things, and employers should focus on whatever it is they do best -- not being a healthcare provider.
  - res0nat0r 7y ago
    The government requires a minimum wage, and companies pay for it...
  - davidw 7y ago
    > It's madness. The government should provide these things, and employers should focus on whatever it is they do best -- not being a healthcare provider. The startup I worked for in Italy had about 40 people by the time I left. They dedicated ZERO person hours to anything health care related. No insurance, no administration, nothing. Italy has plenty of other obstacles for startups of course, so that in and of itself didn't make it easier to do one there - but what a nice thing for a business to be able to ignore.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    The government doesn't pay for anything. Taxpayers do. Now I'm not against taxpayers paying for something so long as all taxpayers pay for that thing that everyone enjoys. What isn't right is when someone votes for a tax they won't feel the burden of. Everyone who gets the benefit should also have skin in the game to pay for that benefit.
    - markstos 7y ago
      So children should pay for playgrounds and schools?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - dexterdog 7y ago
        If they have income yes. If they are supported by adults then those are the people paying.
      - ineedasername 7y ago
        By the time my kid pays for his sandbox he'll be too old to care about it.
- halfjew22 7y ago
  > Bezos isn't any different than anyone else here, really. Maybe someone will get to him to be kind I just can't help but think that this is an incredibly naive model of how corporations function. I'm not saying I disagree with the premise but I do think it would be incredibly helpful to the people pushing for this to give off a greater sense of how multi billion dollar corporations function. It just really can't be that simple.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Smart employers don't offer sick leave out of the goodness of their heart: if the sick employee stays home, they don't infect others, so overall productivity is higher. And of course this applies even more with the pandemic.
  - krapp 7y ago
    And Amazon, being Amazon, generously offers their employees unlimited unpaid time off for the time being.
  - ajross 7y ago
    Yeah, but that's a long term kind of decision-making and market pressure that, as I said, really only works in a steady state environment. Right now Amazon needs to worry that if they offer this, everyone will take off sick out of fear. They have to worry that if that happens that it won't happen to Walmart, who didn't offer the benefit. There isn't time for a feedback cycle to work, they're worried about losing a years worth of revenue right now. You just can't trust an employer's self interest to align with ours at moments like this, for the same reason you can't trust our own self interests to align (c.f. people working when they're sick because they need the money, or sick new yorkers fleeing to other states -- both decisions made in immediate self interest).
- grecy 7y ago
  > Employers are never going to get this right. Amazon specifically (and obviously they're not alone) is looking at a huge financial impact to "doing the right thing" here. ....Realistically, governments are the only entities capable of providing this kind of security in extremis. Oh come on. Amazon make huge profits (and McDonald's and Apple and Starbucks, etc.) Yes, providing this kind of sick leave would reduce their profits, but they are absolutely 100% capable of doing so. In almost every developed country in the world they do. The government just needs to make it law, then Amazon won't be at a disadvantage to their competitors, they'll all be on a level playing field. It's just a question of what's more important - corporate profits, or employee health, safety and ability to pay rent and buy food.
  - ajross 7y ago
    > The government just needs to make it law That's exactly what I said.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    > Amazon make huge profits Not taxable profits ;)
- jdminhbg 7y ago
  > Obviously you're being downvoted by the libertarians here, Much like how when libertarians haven't touched the levers of power in decades you get indignant tweets about how they've caused the government to fail at something, we get comments here about how the top-voted comment in a given thread is "downvoted by the libertarians."
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  Sick leave backed up by social security works well in most social democracies I'm aware of.
lonelappde 7y ago
Sick leave is just "higher pay + unpaid leave" with extra steps. Sick leave means "get a doctor's note to prove you are sick" or wrestling with what counts as "sick".
- kasey_junk 7y ago
  It’s also a culture of managers sending you home for the good of the team without it being punitive.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  It ensures that they will always be paid enough to be able to take days off when sick and that they will always be able to take them when needed with 0 notice. There is a reason the rest of the world requires permanent employees to have them.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    I think you're missing the point the parent is making. The parent is talking about total compensation. An employer has x amount of dollars allotted for an employee. This x includes everything that the employer needs to employ you: your salary, your vacation time (and pay), you tools etc. If you require that employers provide sick leave then x is still going to stay the same. That sick leave will simply come from some other pool, such as the salary or the money allotted for training or tools.
    - sundaeofshock 7y ago
      Or perhaps it will come from the profit of the company?
      - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
        What if the to the company is unprofitable, as many companies choose to be while growing? No one is allowed to be sick?
adelHBN 7y ago
Amen brother. People shouldn't have to choose.
mcv 7y ago
Not paying for sick leave would mean that an employer forces their sick employees to infect their healthy employees, hurting the continued operation of the company. Even from a business perspective, paid sick leave is obvious. From a human perspective doubly so.
plandis 7y ago
I disagree if you are arguing for the sick pay Amazon workers are walking off demanding. They are asking for unlimited sick pay if they decide they need to self isolate. Let’s say Amazon goes and capitulates to this demand. Why would anyone in their right mind bother coming into work when you get full pay, get to do zero work, less social interaction, all from the comfort of your couch?

by davidw 7y ago

Everyone should have paid sick leave so they don't have to choose between doing the right thing (staying home) and paying rent. Everyone should have a safe working environment.

ajross 7y ago

Obviously you're being downvoted by the libertarians here, but possibly also by people who think this isn't relevant to the discussion. To those folks: it absolutely is. Employers are never going to get this right. Amazon specifically (and obviously they're not alone) is looking at a huge financial impact to "doing the right thing" here. Yes, we'd all want our employers to take this kind of safety seriously, and a few will, but most of them won't either because they don't care or because they're worried their competitors don't. Bezos isn't any different than anyone else here, really. Maybe someone will get to him to be kind, maybe they won't, but for employees that's just not something that's ever going to be a security guarantee. Realistically, governments are the only entities capable of providing this kind of security in extremis. Employers, at best, get this right (due to competetive pressure) during steady state situations. When the world blows up, they can't help.

nostromo 7y ago
If the government wants people to have something, the government should provide it, and provide it to everyone. Does the government want people to have healthcare? Then the government should pay for it, not require employers to pay for it. If the government wants people to have paid leave or a pension, then they should pay for that too. Imagine if we tied other benefits to employment. Maybe the government could require your company buy you a car and dinner every night. People need transportation and food, right? So lets make employers provide it! It's free for the government and legislators get to feel virtuous for providing it, when actually they have just offloaded their costs to someone else. It's madness. The government should provide these things, and employers should focus on whatever it is they do best -- not being a healthcare provider.
- res0nat0r 7y ago
  The government requires a minimum wage, and companies pay for it...
- davidw 7y ago
  > It's madness. The government should provide these things, and employers should focus on whatever it is they do best -- not being a healthcare provider. The startup I worked for in Italy had about 40 people by the time I left. They dedicated ZERO person hours to anything health care related. No insurance, no administration, nothing. Italy has plenty of other obstacles for startups of course, so that in and of itself didn't make it easier to do one there - but what a nice thing for a business to be able to ignore.
- malandrew 7y ago
  The government doesn't pay for anything. Taxpayers do. Now I'm not against taxpayers paying for something so long as all taxpayers pay for that thing that everyone enjoys. What isn't right is when someone votes for a tax they won't feel the burden of. Everyone who gets the benefit should also have skin in the game to pay for that benefit.
  - markstos 7y ago
    So children should pay for playgrounds and schools?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - dexterdog 7y ago
      If they have income yes. If they are supported by adults then those are the people paying.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      By the time my kid pays for his sandbox he'll be too old to care about it.
halfjew22 7y ago
> Bezos isn't any different than anyone else here, really. Maybe someone will get to him to be kind I just can't help but think that this is an incredibly naive model of how corporations function. I'm not saying I disagree with the premise but I do think it would be incredibly helpful to the people pushing for this to give off a greater sense of how multi billion dollar corporations function. It just really can't be that simple.
9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
Smart employers don't offer sick leave out of the goodness of their heart: if the sick employee stays home, they don't infect others, so overall productivity is higher. And of course this applies even more with the pandemic.
- krapp 7y ago
  And Amazon, being Amazon, generously offers their employees unlimited unpaid time off for the time being.
- ajross 7y ago
  Yeah, but that's a long term kind of decision-making and market pressure that, as I said, really only works in a steady state environment. Right now Amazon needs to worry that if they offer this, everyone will take off sick out of fear. They have to worry that if that happens that it won't happen to Walmart, who didn't offer the benefit. There isn't time for a feedback cycle to work, they're worried about losing a years worth of revenue right now. You just can't trust an employer's self interest to align with ours at moments like this, for the same reason you can't trust our own self interests to align (c.f. people working when they're sick because they need the money, or sick new yorkers fleeing to other states -- both decisions made in immediate self interest).
grecy 7y ago
> Employers are never going to get this right. Amazon specifically (and obviously they're not alone) is looking at a huge financial impact to "doing the right thing" here. ....Realistically, governments are the only entities capable of providing this kind of security in extremis. Oh come on. Amazon make huge profits (and McDonald's and Apple and Starbucks, etc.) Yes, providing this kind of sick leave would reduce their profits, but they are absolutely 100% capable of doing so. In almost every developed country in the world they do. The government just needs to make it law, then Amazon won't be at a disadvantage to their competitors, they'll all be on a level playing field. It's just a question of what's more important - corporate profits, or employee health, safety and ability to pay rent and buy food.
- ajross 7y ago
  > The government just needs to make it law That's exactly what I said.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  > Amazon make huge profits Not taxable profits ;)
jdminhbg 7y ago
> Obviously you're being downvoted by the libertarians here, Much like how when libertarians haven't touched the levers of power in decades you get indignant tweets about how they've caused the government to fail at something, we get comments here about how the top-voted comment in a given thread is "downvoted by the libertarians."
EdwardDiego 7y ago
Sick leave backed up by social security works well in most social democracies I'm aware of.

lonelappde 7y ago

Sick leave is just "higher pay + unpaid leave" with extra steps. Sick leave means "get a doctor's note to prove you are sick" or wrestling with what counts as "sick".

kasey_junk 7y ago
It’s also a culture of managers sending you home for the good of the team without it being punitive.
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
It ensures that they will always be paid enough to be able to take days off when sick and that they will always be able to take them when needed with 0 notice. There is a reason the rest of the world requires permanent employees to have them.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  I think you're missing the point the parent is making. The parent is talking about total compensation. An employer has x amount of dollars allotted for an employee. This x includes everything that the employer needs to employ you: your salary, your vacation time (and pay), you tools etc. If you require that employers provide sick leave then x is still going to stay the same. That sick leave will simply come from some other pool, such as the salary or the money allotted for training or tools.
  - sundaeofshock 7y ago
    Or perhaps it will come from the profit of the company?
    - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
      What if the to the company is unprofitable, as many companies choose to be while growing? No one is allowed to be sick?

adelHBN 7y ago

Amen brother. People shouldn't have to choose.

mcv 7y ago

Not paying for sick leave would mean that an employer forces their sick employees to infect their healthy employees, hurting the continued operation of the company. Even from a business perspective, paid sick leave is obvious. From a human perspective doubly so.

plandis 7y ago

I disagree if you are arguing for the sick pay Amazon workers are walking off demanding. They are asking for unlimited sick pay if they decide they need to self isolate. Let’s say Amazon goes and capitulates to this demand. Why would anyone in their right mind bother coming into work when you get full pay, get to do zero work, less social interaction, all from the comfort of your couch?