New Obama order requires contractors to pay for sick leave

[IDemo]

Source: CNN

Hundreds of thousands of American workers could become newly eligible for paid sick leave after President Barack Obama signs an executive order Monday forcing companies who contract with the federal government to provide the benefit to their employees.

The Labor Day announcement comes after a set of similar orders requiring federal contractors to boost paychecks and conditions for their workers, including expanding overtime compensation, banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and raising workers' minimum wage.

Obama has pushed Congress to extend those new rules across the entire private sector, but met resistance from Republicans in Congress. Similar opposition was expected to the paid sick leave rule.

The proposed rule change Obama plans to announce Monday in Boston would require firms receiving government contracts to provide an hour of paid sick leave for every thirty hours an employee works, up to seven paid sick days per year.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/07/politics/obama-mandatory-sick-leave/index.html

[riversedge]

1. Great Labor Day present for some workers. thank you Pres Obama

[ion_theory]

3. Was going to say this as well.

Amazes me in the 21st Century this is still a debate, but labor rights requires constant vigilance to keep up with the constant onslaught. Thanks Obama.

[SoapBox]

4. ^^^This!^^^

[Sunlei]

2. Not to long ago, another EO got contractors, 'workers' a pay raise. Thank you President Obama.

President Obama said he would do what he could by EO for 'the people' and he keeps delivering positive results.

[Joey Liberal]

5. Thank You, President Obama!

It's about time those cheap companies with federal contracts gave all of their employees sick leave. President Obama rocks!

[mountain grammy]

6. Thanks Obama!

For real. This is how it should be at all levels of government. The government is not Walmart or McDonalds and should demand decent pay, benefits and working conditions from all contractors, as well as accountability. The purpose of public projects is not to enrich a few CEO's, but to get a good job done at a reasonable cost with workers from our own communities earning a living wage.

Tell that to the lame Congressional oversight committee on Veterans' Affairs with not one, but two Colorado republican congressmen who have so badly botched the new VA hospital boondoggle in Denver. It's a typical Republican deal... millions of dollars gone somewhere while the hospital is half finished. These Congress critters couldn't oversight their way out of a paper bag. Too busy making sure big donors get their payoffs, and it should cost both of them their seats. It may affect Coffman, but Lamborn is from Colorado Springs where stupidity and incompetence is celebrated.

[shawn703]

7. As a contractor, I'll have to see how this works out before I'm happy about it

My sick time and vacation time is combined into one PTO bucket, and any unused hours carry over to the next year, up to a maximum at which point those extra hours get paid out rather than continue to accrue. If they don't mess with this, change PTO to vacation and then give us an extra seven days of sick leave, that would be great. if they now accrue into separate buckets, with sick days becoming "use it or lose it", I could see this being a bad thing.

[VanillaRhapsody]

12. Why?

You can always USE sick days.... I think they have to go in addtion too...otherwise they void their contract with you....

[Dustlawyer]

8. State workers in Texas have to work 30 days to earn 8 hours sick time.

A half day out for a doctors appointment twice in a month and it's gone! If you have kids you generally have no sick time for yourself. You still cannot afford to get sick!

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Regular federal workers only earn 8 hours a month

I.e., 4 hours per pay period (where the pay period = 80 hours). Per my family members in the private sector, they get "sick periods" where if the person has a longer term illness, they can take off weeks or months if necessary. But then there's always that "catch" in terms of how to reconcile multiple illnesses during the year and what the "sick period" cutoff is.

Agree that the U.S. needs to do something about this because sick workers can and often do create more sick workers (and sick patrons if they are in the service industry). And if corporate America (and even small biz America) thinks that doesn't impact their bottom lines, then they are living on Mars. Just based on the battles that we have gone through here in Philly requiring businesses with 10 employees to offer paid sick time (with all kinds of stipulations), it is just sad.

[Ms. Yertle]

14. Maybe I'm missing something here . . .

8 hours/30 days=12 days/year, right? So, that is a better benefit than what this EO provides. Will the EO give companies an excuse to screw workers by cutting their current benefits?

[Starry Messenger]

9. K&R

[VanillaRhapsody]

11. Thank You President Obama!!!-

[Ms. Yertle]

13. Questions about this

My dh's company has some government contracts. Their current union contract requires that they be paid $400+/week in short-term disability pay, which is significantly less than what most of them make on an hourly basis. In a practical sense, there is no real limit to the time they are paid, but they need a doctor's note to take ANY sick time.

How will this EO change this? Will the company now be able to limit the pay to 7 days per year? Does this EO require that they be paid at their normal hourly rate? Will they still need a doc's note to access this benefit?

[asiliveandbreathe]

15. And still Repubican voters vote against their own interests -

From Article

Obama has pushed Congress to extend those new rules across the entire private sector, but met resistance from Republicans in Congress. Similar opposition was expected to the paid sick leave rule.

And still Republican voters malign and hate on our wonderful President - (no, I do NOT agree with TPP) -

Surely Mr. Prez - A man for all seasons...against all odds......

[IronLionZion]

16. I'm in contracting, many companies give 1 "paid time off"

so this order has good intentions, but it separates sick leave from vacation/holidays/personal/etc.

The benefit of one PTO is that we are more likely to change companies often, or get let go at the end of a government contract. PTO gets paid out in cash at that time. Vacation gets paid out. However, sick leave is lost.

So now, some unscrupulous companies, usually the bigger more corporate ones, will just shift more of the vacation/PTO into sick leave, and they get to save a shit load of money when they fire people and blame it on Obama.

Contracting companies have been cutting back on leave. One large multi-national made headlines by restarting the clock on vacation accrual each year. They had always had low caps on how much vacation one could accrue, but their new rule forced people to use it up in December or lose it. Knowing full well that many of their technical/infrastructure support contractors have to work right through the holidays while the rest of America is on vacation, and would generally plan their own vacations during another time of year. Assholes. Sick leave didn't expire at that company. So I lost about 2 months of accrued sick leave when I left those bastards.