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U.S. NEWSWednesday 20 May 2015
American living changing their paid sick company also is reviewing Shannon Henderson poses outside the Wal-Mart store where she
leave policies ahead of its sick policy for part-time works as a part-time customer service representative, in Sacra-
Continued from page 7 legislation. workers, who account for mento, Calif. Henderson is one of an estimated 40 million Ameri-
In February, Wal-Mart, the half of its 1.3 million-person can workers for who calling in sick is a luxury. If they don’t work,
Eileen Appelbaum, senior largest U.S. private em- workforce in the U.S. Cur- they don’t get paid.
economist at Center for ployer, said within about a rently, if part-time workers
Economic and Policy Re- year it would end the one- are ill, they have to use (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
search, says mandated day wait for sick pay for all personal days. McDon-
sick pay has not had a full-time U.S. workers. That’s ald’s is taking a different time off a year. If employ-
negative impact on some a change from the current approach by lumping per- ees don’t take the earned
companies that have system that requires Wal- sonal and sick days togeth- time off, they will be paid
been surveyed. According Mart workers in the U.S. to er. Starting July 1, full-time for the value of it. The ben-
to a survey the group did wait a day to use sick days, and part-time workers at efits apply to only McDon-
of businesses in Connecti- which means they have to company-owned restau- ald’s company-owned
cut, which has required use personal days on the rants will begin to accrue restaurants, which repre-
paid sick leave since 2012, first day out sick. (Full-time personal paid time off af- sent about 10 percent of
one-third of workers took workers can earn up to two ter one year of service that its more than 14,300 restau-
no paid sick leave. “They personal days and about can be used for sick leave. rants nationwide.
treat them as insurance,” six days of sick leave pay a An employee working “We’ve listened to our em-
she said. year.) an average of 20 hours a ployees and learned that
Big companies with op- Randy Hargrove, a Wal- week will be eligible to ac- — in addition to increased
erations nationwide are Mart spokesman, said the crue about 20 hours of paid wages — paid personal
leave ... would make a real
difference in their careers
and lives,” McDonald’s
President and CEO Steve
Easterbrook said in a state-
ment.
Workplace experts expect
other companies to fol-
low Wal-Mart and McDon-
ald’s. “More employers are
voluntarily adopting paid
sick leave programs,” says
Mark Girouard, an employ-
ment attorney at Nilan
Johnson Lewis who repre-
sents national retailers.
That is welcome news to
workers who struggle to
make ends meet when
they take a sick day.q
