Trump's Labor Department Takes A Hacksaw To Coronavirus Paid Sick Leave
What started out as a valiant effort to provide Americans with paid sick leave during an unprecedented health care crisis has ended with a paltry measure that will barely cover anyone who is still working in the COVID-19 economy.
On Thursday, the Department of Labor published guidelines on the new paid sick leave and family leave provisions enacted last month as part of Congress’s second coronavirus relief act.
The measures in the law were already a watered-down version of what Democrats and advocates wanted: real paid time off for all workers who get sick, are quarantined, or have to care long-term for a family member who is sick or a child home due to a school closure.
Instead, the law made 10 days of paid sick time and 10 weeks more of longer-term leave available to those working at companies with fewer than 500 employees. Millions were left out.
Now the Department of Labor has further hollowed out those provisions. It’s totally exempting the estimated 9 million people who work in the health care industry ― from a doctor to a pharmacy clerk to a janitor in a hospital. These are workers who are most likely to be in contact with infected patients, at high risk of getting sick. And under the new law, they can’t get a guaranteed sick day.
“Thanks to Republican opposition, the steps we’ve taken on paid leave are inadequate in light of the crisis, and now, the Trump Administration is twisting the law to allow employers to shirk their responsibility and is significantly narrowing which workers are eligible for paid leave. This simply can’t stand,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a statement slamming the “gratuitous loopholes.”
The new regulations give wide leeway to very small businesses, who can pretty much automatically bow out of providing longer-term leave to parents with kids at home from school.
Bottom line: Millions of more people ― including the workers who are most likely to come into contact with the coronavirus ― will...
