Herdt: Not much pay, but paid time off

Hourly pay for middle- and low-wage workers in America has been essentially stagnant for decades. It is a fact of life that frustrates elected officials alarmed about growing income inequality, but other than tinker with the minimum wage there's not much they can directly do about it. In California, however, lawmakers have found something they can do to improve the lot of workers: Make certain they can get some time off when they most need it.

On Wednesday, California became the first state to require paid sick time for virtually all workers, regardless of the size of the company for which they work.

A law signed last year by Gov. Jerry Brown mandates that employees accrue one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked and that the amount of paid sick time can accumulate to three days per year.

This year, lawmakers are considering a further expansion of workers' ability to take time off when they or a family member is sick or when a new child comes into the home.

A bill that has passed the Senate would align two existing laws so that workers at companies with 25 or more employees could take up to 12 weeks unpaid time, be assured their jobs would be held open and also qualify for partial wage replacement under the state's Paid Family Leave Act.

The money workers receive under the Paid Family Leave Act comes entirely from contributions deducted from employees' paychecks.

Again, California is leading on an issue that — although unwelcome by most in the business community — is picking up momentum nationwide and emerging as sleeper political issue.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic candidate for president, has called for federal legislation to guarantee paid time off for illnesses, vacation and family leave.

And in her presidential campaign kickoff speech last month, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton highlighted the issue, saying workers should not have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick relative or new baby.

The idea of having time off from work to attend to family demands has surprising potency, especially among women. A poll of working women conducted for a study last year by former California first lady Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress produced this eye-popping finding: 96 percent of single mothers identified paid leave as the workplace policy that would most improve their lives.

A more recent New York Times/CBS News poll found 85 percent support for the idea of requiring employers to provide paid sick leave.

The power of the idea, said Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, is the power of families.

'Families are a complicated situation in today's world,' Jackson told an Assembly committee while presenting her bill to expand unpaid family and medical leave. 'We want to say as a society that we respect families.'

While critics point to this law as another example of what they assert are state policies that are antagonistic to employers and harmful to the state economy, this trend is not solely a California phenomenon.

Connecticut, Massachusetts and Oregon also have paid sick-day laws, although not quite as expansive as California's. Selected cities and counties, including San Francisco and Philadelphia, also have local laws on the books.

Some major companies, including McDonald's, have recently expanded the number of workers who qualify for paid sick time.

The notion of paid sick time, says Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, is one on which the United States has long been behind the curve. Gonzalez, D-San Diego, is the author of California's new law.

'Of the 23 richest nations in the world, the United States is the only one without an earned sick-day policy,' Gonzalez told me this week. 'We're the only country to not provide this humane, simple thing.'

Economists note that on this issue, as with all matters economic, there is no free lunch.

A study of the impacts of the Connecticut law by the Employment Policies Institute found that of 156 employers it surveyed, 31 had reduced other benefits as a result of the paid sick leave law and others said they intended to offer fewer raises. Such arguments might carry more power in a world in which workers had shared in economic growth. But in today's employment environment, they haven't.

Wages have been stagnant for so long, workers appear to have little hope these days for decent pay raises. Many are clamoring instead for workplace policies that will at least make their lives more tolerable.

Timm Herdt is a columnist for the Ventura County Star.