Protecting Health and Pocketbooks? Early Outcomes of the Seattle Paid Sick & Safe Days Ordinance
The employment benefit of paid sick leave provides wages to employees who miss work due to temporary illness or incapacitation. Social workers have supported paid sick laws as providing opportunities for all workers to preserve personal, family and public health without losing wages. World-wide, workers in some 145 countries have the right to paid leave for their own or children’s illness. The U.S., in contrast, has no such national mandate. As has been an emerging pattern in American municipalities and states, Seattle recently passed a Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance, effective September 1, 2012, requiring employers with more than four employees to provide paid time off to all Seattle-based workers. This paper, based on a larger study contracted by the City, evaluates the extent to which employers now offer the mandated leave, and to understand how workers and employers navigate the use of leave.
Methods:
Data include a pre-and post-ordinance surveys of N=551 randomly-sampled employers and 82 interviews conducted with Seattle workers and employers in the accommodation and food service, retail, and health and social service industries. Analysis focuses on understanding the accessibility of the newly implemented law to workers. The researchers weighted survey results for non-response and systematically analyzed interview data using cross-case methods.
Results:
While most eligible Seattle employers now offer at least some paid sick leave – including a striking increase in the food and accommodation sector, from 14% pre-Ordinance to 78% of employers after – just 77% of employers provide the full amount of paid leave mandated. Many employers who do not meet this standard nonetheless believe they are in compliance with the Ordinance. Part-time and seasonal or temporary workers, eligible for paid sick time, appear most at risk for not receiving it. Large employers (with 250 or more FTE) are also less likely to provide enough paid sick time to their workers.
Interview data suggest several barriers to workers’ access. Over half of workers interviewed were completely unaware of the Ordinance or had only limited awareness prior to being interviewed. Many reported not having access to paid leave at the time of the interview, despite the mandate that their employers provide it. When workers were aware of the mandated benefit, they described that it was only one of several factors they took into account in contemplating taking work leave for illness, others of which included their employers’ attitudes about taking time off, financial repercussions of missing work (particularly for tipped employees, who would be paid just minimum wage per hour during sick days), and their own work ethics.
Conclusions/Implications:
This paper adds to the knowledge base for social work practice through documenting the effects of a new social policy mandate on organizations and individuals. Strong employee support and widespread compliance suggest this is a feasible strategy for improving work conditions. Communication and enforcement strategies for ensuring equitable access to leave will be discussed.