New Obama order requires contractors to pay for sick leave

Jackie22

Jackie22

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[h=1]New Obama order requires contractors to pay for sick leave[/h]Source: CNN

Hundreds of thousands of American workers could become newly eligible for paid sick leave after President Barack Obama signs an executive order Monday forcing companies who contract with the federal government to provide the benefit to their employees.

The Labor Day announcement comes after a set of similar orders requiring federal contractors to boost paychecks and conditions for their workers, including expanding overtime compensation, banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and raising workers' minimum wage.

Obama has pushed Congress to extend those new rules across the entire private sector, but met resistance from Republicans in Congress. Similar opposition was expected to the paid sick leave rule.

The proposed rule change Obama plans to announce Monday in Boston would require firms receiving government contracts to provide an hour of paid sick leave for every thirty hours an employee works, up to seven paid sick days per year.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/07/politics/obama-mandatory-sick-leave/index.html
 

This will be interesting to see play out. I believe anyone performing their job in a professional manner should be afforded sick leave, vacation, etc. Projects with Federal money have long included Davis-Bacon wages... "prevailing wage". States 'ruled' by the GOP gestapo have found ways to get around the Davis-Bacon wage structure. They will take Federal money in to their highway departments, then hand money to local governments and see the Davis-Bacon requirement go away. I'm sure they will find some way of getting around the requirement for sick leave.

The other side of the coin is what is happening in the Northwest after a couple states implemented $15/hour minimum wage laws. People are applying in droves for those jobs but saying they will work no more than ~20 hours/week. They won't work full time and lose the social service benefits. Why work 40 hours if you can work 20 and draw "free money" for the other 20 hours pay?? Raising the minimum wage hasn't really brought all employees out of "poverty". It has afforded them the chance to make good money for half-time work. So...
Can the requirement for sick leave be tied to a benefit package with a minimum of 35 to 40 hours? That way, folks would have to commit to work full time to get the sick leave benefit... cancelling out their dependence on the social service programs and lowering the taxes needed to pay the budget dollars for those social service programs.
 

What is the fuss?
All workers should be entitled to sick pay, overtime rates and workers' compensation if injured on the job.
If casual workers there should be a loading to include these benefits in the higher hourly rate.
 
Dame Warrigal said:
What is the fuss?
All workers should be entitled to sick pay, overtime rates and workers' compensation if injured on the job.
If casual workers there should be a loading to include these benefits in the higher hourly rate.
Click to expand...

Ma'am, you don't understand the political aspect of one of America's political parties. If they had their way, there would be no minimum wage... no sick leave... no vacation... no workers compensation insurance... no social security benefits. "The help" would work for whatever the boss wanted to pay them. If they didn't like it they could go stand in a soup line at a church for food.
 
I understand quite well.
The people of America should tell them to pull their heads in on this issue.
Surely you have enough people over there to raise a ruckus when they try to enrich themselves by exploiting workers.
 
The US manufacturers and vendors do want to make some profits for paying the stock holders and lenders for investing. They also need plenty of money to develop more products. Just paying more dollars is not the way to go. That keeps on raising prices and sales fall. Then they go to lower paying places to get the products made. It is a never ending operation from investing for a profit to more demands for wages and benefits that just put an end to the efforts. Not many seem to even try to understand that self defeating path at all. It has recently happened to Australia as well.

What happened to your auto industry?
 

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