Vox, which is normally good at analysis, hasn't picked this up - it says:
Emergency paid sick days: The bill would give workers 14 days of paid sick leave to be available immediately during the coronavirus (many employers are asking employees to work from home for that amount of time). It ensures sick leave to those impacted by quarantine orders, or those who must stay home to care for their children. The bill reimburses small businesses (those with 50 or fewer employees) for the cost of the 14 additional days of leave.
Emergency paid leave: The bill would create a new federal emergency paid leave program for those unable to work because they have Covid-19, are quarantined, are caring for someone with the disease, or are caring for a child due to coronavirus-related school closings. Eligible workers would receive benefits for a month (the program goes up to three months), and the benefit amount would be two-thirds of the individual’s average monthly earnings. Those receiving pay or unemployment compensation directly through their employers aren’t eligible. There is some precedent for this: Congress expanded unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks for Americans left unemployed by the 2008 financial crisis.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/14/21179651/coronavirus-house-pelosi-aid-testingOn edit: I found one part of their argument:
"The bill does require some employers to provide full-time workers with up to 10 days of paid leave. But the requirement does not apply to the nation’s largest employers — companies with 500 or more workers, who together employ roughly 54 percent of all workers."
This seems damned odd. Small employers often get exemptions; but why would there be an explicit exemption for large ones? They're the ones who would be reckoned best able to borrow, adjust work schedules, and so on, to make it work.
And a bit more:
One of the biggest changes is a new paid sick leave guarantee for those impacted by the coronavirus, and reaching agreement on this issue was one of the final sticking points to a deal. Under the agreement, employers would be required to provide 14 days of paid sick leave at “not less” than two-thirds their regular rate. They would qualify for the benefit if they are sick and have to be quarantined or treated for coronavirus, or if they have to leave their jobs to take care of a family member who has coronavirus. Workers would also be eligible for paid sick leave if they have to stay home because they have a child whose school or childcare facility has closed due to the coronavirus.
The agreement also dramatically expands the existing paid family medical and leave program from its current form. Under existing law, employers are required to give “job protected” medical leave for up to 12 weeks — meaning workers cannot be fired — without additional pay. Under the Pelosi-Mnuchin plan, workers taking paid medical leave would also be paid at two-thirds of their typical rate of pay for the 12 weeks. This benefit, which applies to companies with fewer than 500 employees, would be available for a year for people affected by the coronavirus.
House Democrats initially sought to apply the new family leave benefit more broadly across corporate America, but the White House pushed to narrow it to smaller businesses. Mnuchin told Fox Business they expected larger corporations to pick up those costs on their own.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/03/13/paid-leave-democrats-trump-deal-coronavirus/So, they "expect" the big employers to do it themselves. Sigh. That means the worst big employers won't. It's ridiculous - they're saying "well, the average big employer does, so we won't worry about them". But this is not a situation in which people can say "big employer X sucks - we'll all resign".
OK, boycott of any big employer that won't cover the paid sick leave itself?
= new reply since forum marked as read
