Washington Post: Why you should care about paid sick leave

A Washington Post Blogger recently wrote about how the vast majority of restaurant workers lack the ability to earn any paid sick time.  This forces most servers and cooks to go work, where they handle people's food and drinks, while ill. 

Below is an excerpt from the blog:

If you're about to eat in a restaurant, you should read this first.

Or then again, maybe you'd rather not.

A report being released at a Congressional hearing later this morning by the D.C.-based Restaurant Opportunities Centers United ("a national restaurant workers' organization, comprised of restaurant worker organizations across the country," according to its Web site) says, among other key findings from its survey of more than 4,000 restaurant workers nationwide, that "nearly 90% of workers said they did not receive paid sick days. As a result, two thirds of respondents said they had worked while sick in the previous year, preparing, cooking and serving food."

Ick.

The restaurant workers' organization is one of many advocates across the country pushing for passage of the Healthy Families Act, whose provisions include requiring employers to provide sick leave. A poll released this summer showed that most Americans favor such a law.

To read the full post click here.  To hear one server's story about having to go to work sick please visit the Working Families Story Bank.