All Featured Highlights: Sick Days and Family Medical Leave

• Apr 02, 2013  |  Jodie Levin-Epstein Getting Down to Business Newsletter - April 2013 Getting Down to Business is CLASP's monthly update on the latest news about business and paid leave. Read Online
• Mar 01, 2013  |  CLASP and ASBC New Tool for Job Quality Advocates: A Primer on Business Certifications Today, CLASP and its partner, the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC), released a new tool for job quality advocates, including advocates for earned sick days and paid family leave. The jointly produced brief provides advocates with a primer on the nuts and bolts of the business certification movement and suggests ways to foster fruitful relationships between the movement and campaigns for improved job quality, such as earned sick days campaigns. Read Online
• Feb 27, 2013  |  Liz Ben-Ishai Implementing Earned Sick Days Laws: Learning from Seattle's Experience Advocates in Seattle fought hard to build the support necessary to pass the city’s Paid Sick and Safe Time (PSST) Ordinance. But the hard work did not end when the law passed in September 2011. Once the ink on Seattle’s ordinance had dried, the process of implementing the law began. Read Online
• Feb 19, 2013  |  Jodie Levin-Epstein When Family Leave Crosses the Aisle All politicians -- whether Democratic or Republican -- have a mother. While their politics may differ, they share a need to care for parents and other family at some point in their lives. That's common ground. Read Online
• Sep 03, 2007  |  Elizabeth Lower-Basch Opportunity at Work: Improving Job Quality This paper describes the state of job quality in the U.S. today and makes the case that improving job quality is a critical part of the agenda for reducing poverty, supporting families, rewarding effort, and expanding opportunity for all. It is part of Opportunity at Work, CLASP’s job quality initiative. Download PDF
• Feb 07, 2013  |  Liz Ben-Ishai Business Support for the Family and Medical Leave Act The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which enables workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected leave to care for their own serious illness, a sick family member, or to bond with a new baby, has been used by millions of workers since its passage in 1993. As this important piece of legislation celebrates its 20th anniversary, new data shows that the vast majority of businesses find administering the law easy, and 80 percent of small businesses favor the legislation. But the data also point to a pressing need for paid leave programs, like those in California and New Jersey. In those states, family leave insurance programs have made it possible for employees to take paid family leave, easing the financial burden of caring for oneself and one's family. Research shows that businesses in California have found the state's Paid Family Leave (PFL) program to be good for or have little effect on business. This brief from CLASP demonstrates business support for both the FMLA and paid family leave, while highlighting the pressing need for paid leave. Download PDF
• Feb 14, 2013  |  Jodie Levin-Epstein Family Leave Insurance: Before the Smoke Settles “Holy smokes!” is how James Heckman, a Nobel prize winner in economics, enthusiastically reacted to the details of President Obama’s early childhood education plans. Heckman’s shout-out makes sense. One doesn’t need to be a Nobel laureate nor an economist to see how this early education agenda could make a huge difference in providing opportunity to many more children. While the agenda is bold and multifaceted and deserves high marks, it also missed a vital opportunity by neglecting to address paid family leave. Read Online
• Feb 01, 2013  |  Liz Ben-Ishai Getting Down to Business Newsletter - February 2013 Getting Down to Business is a CLASP monthly update on the latest news about business and paid leave. Read Online
• Jan 18, 2013  |  Liz Ben-Ishai Earned Sick Days: What Consumers Want While many people assume that paid sick days are widely available to all, that is far from the truth for too many workers. This critical workplace protection is important both to workers and consumers. A new poll demonstrates that restaurants that do not offer their employees the opportunity to earn paid sick days do so at their own peril. The survey, put out by the National Consumers League (NCL), found that 92 percent of consumers believe that it is very important or important that the servers and cooks in the restaurants they patronize do not cook or serve while sick. Well over half of respondents agreed on the importance of allowing these workers to earn paid sick days. With consumers expressing a clear preference for fair sick leave policies, the message to business owners is also clear: to satisfy customers, employers must provide restaurant workers with just working conditions, including earned sick days. Policymakers should take note as well. Read Online
• Dec 19, 2012  |  CLASP Videos: Employers Discuss the Implementation of D.C.'s Earned Sick Days Law In 2008, Washington, D.C. became the second city in the U.S. to pass an earned sick days law. The Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act guarantees some (but not all) D.C. workers the right to accrue paid sick leave. In these video, CLASP speaks with business owners about their experiences implementing the law and what it has meant for their businesses and employees. Read Online
• Jan 07, 2013  |  Liz Ben-Ishai For Safe Food System, Workers Need Earned Sick Days On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration proposed two broad new food safety rules, marking the first major food safety rulemaking since the 1930s. These rules are a major step forward for consumer safety. However, policymakers should take note that a major gap in labor protections for workers who handle our food continues to imperil the safety of our food system: most farmworkers and restaurant workers, as well as other food chain workers, receive no earned sick days, which means many are forced to come to work when sick. This lack of protections is not only unfair to workers, but also 1) dangerous for consumers, who risk infection and illness when they eat food handled by sick workers, 2) bad for businesses, and 3) harmful to the U.S. economy. Read Online
• Dec 18, 2012  |  Liz Ben-Ishai Businesses Can Avoid the High Cost of Workplace Injuries by Offering Earned Sick Days Add one more piece of evidence to the increasingly-difficult-to-ignore body of facts that suggests earned sick days – particularly for lower-wage workers – are crucial to our country’s economic success and families’ economic security. A new study by health economist J. Paul Leigh shows that the economic cost of workplace injuries among low-wage workers amounted to more than $39 billion in 2010. The high cost of workplace injuries among low-wage workers is particularly striking in light of recent research demonstrating that there is a significant correlation between lack of paid sick leave and the incidence of nonfatal occupational injuries. Read Online