A growing number of people and organizations — from health experts to mayors to labour and business — are calling for the province to legislate paid sick days for all employees. Here is a sample of some of those calls.
Alliance for Healthier Communities:
“This week, parents and caregivers in many of these communities will be asked again whether they plan to enrol their children in person or online. But for most this is not a real choice. Without decent work, paid sick days, adequate spaces and supports for online learning, appropriate class sizes, province-wide mask policies for all grade levels, safe ventilation and sanitation facilities or clear guidance on the policies for school-related exposures or symptoms, it is an impossible choice…Will you increase provincially-mandated paid sick days to allow parents and caregivers to meet required periods of isolation when their children are symptomatic or exposed to COVID-19.”
Better Way Alliance:
“It might take some time for businesses to become familiar with the benefits of paid sick time for employees. Fortunately, we’ve learned first hand that what’s good for public health in this case is also good for business…Yet, this pandemic has made clear that we can’t leave the decision to implement paid sick days up to individual employers. Without everyone having access to paid sick days, we are putting whole communities – and our own businesses – at risk. That is why we need government leadership to re-implement paid sick days for all.”
Broadbent Institute:
“Paid sick days must become a permanent feature of the workplace across Canada. During the course of the pandemic, the option of implementing government-paid sick days would help ensure timely coverage, while allowing businesses and employers to recover. However, once the pandemic is over paid sick days will benefit employers the most, so any government subsidy should only be temporary and replaced by employer-paid sick days. The ideal policy would help transition our workforce from the current inadequate patchwork system to a more robust sick leave system for all workers.”
Decent Work and Health Network:
“In sum, gaps in access to paid sick days have multiple negative impacts on individual workers and their families, public health, and the economy. Failing to close the gap by legislating employer-provided paid sick days will continue to deny paid sick days to over half of the workforce. Moreover, those being denied paid sick days need them most — workers in low-wage, precarious jobs who are disproportionately women, migrants, racialized workers, and workers with disabilities. Paid sick days legislation is a public health imperative and a matter of racial, gender, disability, and economic justice. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed glaring workplace inequities that pose grave public health risks. It is now clearer than ever that precarious work and lack of paid sick days is a chronic health hazard and an acute public health crisis.”
Dr. Lawrence Loh, Peel Region Medical Officer of Health:
“It's time for employers who choose not to pay employees when they are sick to put people over profit.
The cost of COVID-19 spreading across our community is far greater than the price of a few sick days.”
Mayor Patrick Brown, City of Brampton:
“I hear again and again it’s too difficult to get sick benefits, and people are going to work when they have symptoms, people are going to work because they can’t afford to lose their job. They don’t have time to wait for six months of paperwork from Ottawa to get that sick-benefit payment back; they can’t afford to miss a paycheque.”
GTHA Mayors and Chairs:
“The Mayors and Chairs believe an urgent discussion should take place with respect to the impact that a lack of sick pay benefits may have on certain workforce populations who are then reluctant to get tested for fear of losing their paycheques.”
Ontario’s Big City Mayors (formerly Large Urban Mayors Caucus of Ontario):
“Ontario's Big City Mayors express their strong belief that nobody should have to choose between going to work sick, and losing their job. Paid sick leave is needed immediately as a measure to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and protect the health of essential workers. We urge the Federal and Provincial governments to immediately implement a paid sick leave program that will support low-income workers, prioritizing those who continue to go to work to provide essential goods and services throughout the pandemic.”
Ontario Chamber of Commerce:
“Public health and safety are priorities for us all. Ensuring people, particularly during a pandemic, can afford to stay home, is both the right thing to do and an economical thing to do. When a worker protects themselves, they protect their colleagues and employer and in turn, they safeguard the entire business.”
Ontario Federation of Labour
“The OFL, the WWC and numerous worker advocates call on the Ontario government to legislate in the Employment Standards Act the provision of at least seven paid days of emergency leave on a permanent basis, and additional 14 days of paid emergency leave during public health emergencies. In addition, the paid emergency leave must be available to all workers regardless of employment status, immigration status, or workplace size, and the leave must cover personal sickness, injury, or emergency, as well as family emergencies and responsibilities.”
Ontario Medical Association (2018):
“Anecdotal reports suggest that eliminating sick notes…led to increased absenteeism in the workplace, implying that employees are abusing progressive sick leave policies when they are in place. Consideration should be given to a different explanation. It is conceivable that when the more restrictive sick leave policy was in place, sick employees either refrained from taking sick days, or returned to work prematurely. Should a sick employee come to work while still contagious they risk exposing colleagues to the virus, who may also fall ill and require time off. Moreover, evidence suggests that when employees go to work while sick they are less productive and prone to mistakes.”
Ontario Nonprofit Network:
“As a sector serving communities, we know paid sick leave is essential to those most vulnerable, particularly lower-income workers. As employers, overall compensation in the nonprofit sector is less than private and public sectors, and paid sick days are one way to provide decent work, and keep our workplaces safe and healthy.”
Peel Public Health:
“Peel Health also continues to strongly recommend that employers protect their employees by providing sick leave benefits and job protections. This would permit employees who are affected by COVID-19 to do the right thing and self-isolate to help stop spread.”
Registered Nurses of Ontario:
“Under current laws, no one in the province has the right to paid sick days and 1.6 million Ontarians could lose their jobs for taking unpaid sick days. Paid sick days enable people to get the care they need in appropriate and more cost effective settings (e.g. primary care settings), without placing further burden on already busy emergency departments. We are calling on the Ontario government to introduce legislation immediately to amend the Employment Standards Act so all employees in Ontario accrue a minimum of one hour paid sick time for every 35 hours worked. For a full-time worker this would be 7 paid sick days per year.”
SickKids (Guidance for School Reopening, July 2020):
“Parents and caregivers need to be empowered by their employers to be able to take paid sick days and/or work remotely if their children/youth are not able to attend school.”
Dr. Teresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada:
“Paid sick leave is also essential to protect worker and community health, but only 42% of working Canadians who are older than 18 years reported having access to paid sick leave. Access to paid sick leave was particularly low among workers in hospitality and construction industries, which generally involve in-person work. Without paid sick leave, employees may lose income if they become ill and are unable to work. Without employment security, they may lose their jobs if they stay home when sick. In either case, and particularly if they are economically insecure, workers may feel unable to comply with public health guidance to stay home when sick.”
Toronto Public Health:
“The Board [of Health] also supported Dr. de Villa’s recommendations to increase access to testing in high-transmission neighbourhoods, make public health information more accessible and available in more languages, increase infection prevention and control supports for community agencies and call on the Province of Ontario to implement a stay on residential evictions and ensure paid sick leave for all workers.”
Toronto Star Editorial Board:
“It’s been clear for many months that guaranteed sick days are one of the most fundamental ways to prevent workers from turning up at their jobs with symptoms of COVID-19. If the Ontario government is serious about stopping the second wave, it should drop its objections to paid sick leave. It should give all workers the confidence to follow its advice and stay home if they’re sick.”
Mayor John Tory, City of Toronto:
“The notion that we should just continue to let them go to work and spread this to other people because they’re afraid of losing their paycheque is ridiculous…We need somebody to act now, they should sort it out as between the two governments and the private sector.”