GOP war on labor continues

[brinstar]

FL governor rick scott (who looks like the warlock from GoT season two) signs bill banning paid sick leave

still think we don't need unions?

[Spazz]

For some reason its really hard to get people to see the big picture. Theres a war on labor and the news and politicians have so many people convinced that if they fight for better labor rights the man will take the jobs away and punish them. So we let the job creators do as they please and yet still there is no job security and benefits of all types are slowly but surely disappearing.


Your right harrison unions only protect lazy people. Your right other right wingers if you dont like your job you can always find one you like better since there is such an abundance of jobs out there.

[brinstar]

these neofeudalist motherfuckers won't be happy until we're all serfs begging for $4/hr jobs

if it's a choice between that and corrupt unions i'll take corrupt unions any day of the week

[Tikker]

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[brinstar]

is that rhetorical?

it's so businesses don't have to waste money on work not getting done

which, you know, ignores studies that say having sick people at work is actually less productive than paying them to stay home and get well (illness spreads, people don't work hard when they feel like shit, etc)

though of course it's par for the course for the increasingly-insane GOP to ignore legitimate studies because SCIENCE=LIBERAL=BAD

[Tikker]

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[Reynaldo]

That's a good question because where I've worked has rarely ever had the same policy.

In texas when i was a young pup, the company I broke in with only gave me 5 days off my first year, vacation and sick combined, just 5 PTO days.

At the universities, they generally game me 8 hours of vacation and 8 hours of sick each month so 12/12 per year, and sick always stayed the same while vacation went up 4 hours per month every couple years of service.

[Arlos]

I believe that for exempt employees (ie, those who are not paid hourly and who don't get paid overtime), companies must have some sort of sick day policy. For hourly employees, it becomes much less clear.

Around here in Silicon Valley, most companies are actually pretty intelligent about it for salaried employees, even really large companies. The general standard is: "If you're sick, stay the hell home, period. We lose more overall productivity if you come in and get other people sick than we do if you miss a day in the office sitting at home, and maybe do an hour or two remotely, at least responding to emails." Oracle, for example, had that policy as far back as the late 90s when I worked there. I am sure that if someone was abusing it, they'd get a talking to by their manager, and if you had to be out for a lengthy period, they'd want a doctor's note or proof you were in the hospital, etc. But a 1-off sick day occasionally? No one tracked hours, days, etc.

That policy always made the most sense to me anyway. I wonder how much productivity companies really DO lose by people coming in when they're contagious and getting other people sick because of not wanting to use up "sick time". Gotta be a significant amount. Besides, who is really that productive when they're really sick anyway?

-Arlos

[Tikker]

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[brinstar]

this is florida we're talking about though, not cali. despite going blue for obama, FL is basically an ALEC sandbox thanks to its state leg and idiot warlock gov

now it takes a pretty deep-red socialist (like myself) to argue that paid sick leave should be guaranteed at any job anywhere, but i'm guessing that the vast majority of americans had zero problem with it being an optional benefit companies can use to attract the best workers

however banning it is just fucking criminal (not to mention it smacks of hypocrisy considering it's coming from the "keep govt out of business regulation" cesspool)


RESPONSE TO TIKKER'S NINJAPOST:

that makes sense, though 50% might not be the ideal balance. you don't want people faking their sick time just so they don't lose it, but you also don't want people working through illness (for the reasons detailed in older posts) just to get that extra cash

then again people could just be honest about when they're sick or not sick? i currently have over 500 hours paid sick leave stockpiled at my job because i almost never get sick

[Arlos]

In my experience, I didn't see anyone really abusing the liberal sick day policy at the places I worked. People generally felt it was nice the company was treating you like an adult and that they trusted you. Helped promote employee morale and loyalty, actually. I am sure that occasionally people would seriously abuse it for something more than the random "mental health day" or something, but I never knew of anyone.

-Arlos

[Kaemon]

I don't believe it's banning paid sick days overall. It's banning local gov't to prevent them from instituting MANDATORY paid sick leave. The company is still able to include paid sick leave in their own private policy.

Notice the governor is siding with hospitality type companies. Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Longhorn's, Red Lobster, Season's 52, and Capitol Grille) Walt Disney, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce. These companies don't have paid sick days at the bottom level, instituting mandatory paid sick days can cripple the companies at the operations level, no consumer want's to hear that their Chicken Parm is taking 2 hours because 2 cooks decided to call out knowing full well they're guaranteed to get paid no matter what, or 3 server's call out because they don't like the manager working that night or they just don't feel like working because they came home at sunrise from South Beach. It will also have a side effect of increasing prices to the consumer/guest to balance out the extra $$ hit the companies would take.

No government shouldn't have the right to tell a company they have to pay their employees paid sick days. That is up to the company to institute that policy and it's up to the employee whether or not they want to work for said company based on the pros and cons of the policy of said company.

Edit: changed Local government to No government.

[Spazz]

Im gonna have to say that if you cant treat those who work for you decent that you have no business being in business. I know thats not a real popular mind set but look at how shitty our country is becoming. The people who work for no benefits and low wages make the owners of those companies a fortune ( see that asshole papa jon if you dont get what i mean) all while living in the poor house. You really think something like 5 paid days is going to break the back of applebess walmart or disneyworld than go ahead and contact me about a bridge I have for sale. Not only that but when you dont take care of your employees they end up on all types of government programs that costs everyone money.

[Kaemon]

Brinker alone has over 2k restaurants, I'm just going to say 2000. Each restaurant has on average (low balling) 50 employees. Let's say the average paid per day is $125. For one sick day alone to be budgeted that comes out to $12,500,000 across all brands. Each restaurant will have to budget an additional $6250 for one day of sick days for the year. Compounded to 5 days, that's $31,250 per restaurant per year. They won't try to explain to their stock holders where $62,000,000 of their money went. They will increase pricing on services to the consumer to lessen the blow. In the end, the consumer pays for it.

Now it's your choice whether or not you choose to be employed by Brinker. They give out benefits to part time and full time employee, they give you a meal card (50% off on the entire check except alcohol across all brands) There are perks as well, discounts on AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, FTD Flowers, Budget Rental Cars, etc, etc... You receive a yearly bonus on the anniversary day you were hired 1-5 yrs = $200, 3-5 yrs = $500, 5+ years = $1000 (something like that, don't quote me.) You can start a 401k if you're fulltime (30 hours), if end up admitting that you're an addict, I believe they pay for you to get help. You're depressed, they pay for you to seek help. You need a lawyer for will writing, contracts or mortgage agreements, they will supply you with one at no charge. They have what's called the Brinker Family Fund that is funded by all employees (not mandatory). When Katrina, or Sandy hit, Brinker employees lost housing. BFF helped them get back on their feet. Same with the OKC tornadoes. If you're in a desperate situation such as hospitalized and have been out of work, BFF helped pay rent and groceries for those in need.

There are a lot of benefits, you just don't get paid sick time.

[brinstar]

then again people could just be honest about when they're sick or not sick? i currently have over 500 hours paid sick leave stockpiled at my job because i almost never get sick

sorry to quote myself but i looked at today's paystub and in two weeks i'll break the 600 hour mark

weird thing is i thought they capped out at 540

i'm gonna start donating hours to the collective emergency sick time fund so people who really need it can use it

[Ganzo]

I work from home when I'm sick. This way people just hear me coughing and sneezing on the conference instead of dealing with it in in person.

70% of my work is done in GoToMeetings with Japan and Arizona anyway so not like my office is going to miss me, and i can just VPN in for the other 30%. Honestly I don't know why they won't let me work from home at this point.

I don't even know if I have such thing as sick days anyway, I'm always expected to be in my meetings unless i'm hospitalized.

[leah]

we only have a PTO bank that caps at 120 hrs, though you can carry over up to 40 hours from year to year (so, max 160 hrs). which is well and good, but i miss the policy at my old job: three weeks of vacation time, no dedicated sick time--just don't come in if you're sick. that was cool of them. just about the only cool thing that place did, actually.

current job i can choose to use PTO or just work from home if i'm sick. so if i have a nasty cough or headcold or something, i'll work from home, but if i'm puking i'll take PTO. could be worse.