Traditionally, in the United States, companies didn’t have to offer any paid sick leave (or any paid leave at all, for that matter). Lots of companies do, of course. Professional level employee could pretty much count on at least some paid time off (PTO) either in the form of sick days plus vacation days, or a general pool that they could draw from whether the reason for the day off was the flu or a trip to Disney.
Regardless, 90 percent of us come to work when sick, and that can cause additional problems. Of course, when people are too sick to work, they have to stay home, and companies that don’t allow for that are beginning to find out that their lack of sick plans are resulting in a bunch of new laws.
San Francisco was the first to implement mandatory sick time, then Connecticut and New York City. California’s legislature just passed a paid sick leave law and Massachusetts just voted one in this week. If your business is in any of these places, you need to know the law for each place. If your business is located elsewhere, pay attention, because it’s likely that you’re next.
To keep reading, click here: Everything You Need to Know About Paid Sick Leave
And FYI, while this might possibly be the most boring post ever written, it contains links to the official policies on all states/cities that have sick leave policies, so if you live in CT, MA, CA, or NYC, it’s worth looking at.
Looks like you missed the Seattle Paid Sick and Safe Time policy:
http://www.seattle.gov/civilrights/SickLeave.htm
D.C. also has a paid sick leave act.
I worked for a company for 28 years that offered paid sick time. The catch, however, was that, if you used any, it was counted as an “incident”. Three incidents in a calendar year meant you were subject to discipline, up to and including termination.
Their reasoning was that sick time was for really bad illnesses that might keep you at home for a week or more. Otherwise you were expected to be in your seat at work.
Also, this company did NOT allow us to work from home for ANY reason. They were strictly butt-in-the-seats, if-I-can’t-see-you-you-must-not-be-working.