Going to Work Sick is Poor Company Policy and Dangerous

When I checked ABC news this morning on the Internet, there was an article about Wal-Mart encouraging their workers to work when they had the flu. Other workers feel proud that they can keep up their end even when sick and do not volunteer to go home even when sick.

The ABC article, entitled "Many Continue to Head to Work Sick," states: "And, regardless of company policies on sick leave or attendance, for some, the drive to move forward with work and earn a paycheck can override the need to protect oneself or others from infection."

There's something wrong with having to earn sick pay. Sick leave should be freely given, and yes, it should be paid, because bills do not stop just because a person is ill, and person most likely has a family. A five day occurrence of the flu to a low paid earner at Wal-Mart could be catastrophic not just to the worker themselves but the financial repercussions to their family are long lasting. To put a worker in a position where the sick leave has to be earned is to jeopardize his or her ability to be at a company maintaining a job if hired in the wrong season or even exposed to a virus out of season.

Those who go to work when they are sick do so for financial reasons, especially if they are low wage earners. They then spread their illness to their coworkers and the things they touch. Several people become very ill even if the person carrying it has not become deathly ill. People have different thresholds for viral activity. One person with a cold may hug a friend and get sick with the flu for 2 weeks from the same germs.

The financial consequences of sending a person to work when sick can be astronomical. Not only can they make more errors, but they can put off customers by coughing and sneezing. It does not make a good impression on prospective customers and clients. The consequences of making several, or many people sick around them are greater financially. It would have been able to pay the person to stay home for a typical five to seven day flu duration rather than to compel them to come back to work or they lose their job.

People come back to work when sick due to other considerations that the employer cannot control, like that they are paying on the car that gets them to work, and if they miss a payment, the car could be repossessed. The employer does not have control over that, only the greater economy does, for paying someone minimum wage so that they can barely afford necessities and the car to get to work to buy those necessities.

The work force is either there to support people in living and consuming to live, or it is there to oppress. The trend of new employers will not burn up a work with overexertion, exhaustion, and being forced to go to work sick or lose their jobs. There are too many people becoming disabled from the rigors of working. We have to ask ourselves, "Why is working so hard?" It starts with unreasonable expectations. People are not robots, made to function all waking hours on coffee, and made to function anyway at work when sick.

In the long run, the economy will be far stronger when employers, low wage employers especially, send their workers home who have caught the flu, and have them come back when recovered, and when they have a health insurance plan that does not have to be earned, that can send them to the clinic for antibiotics when they have no cash in the house due to making minimum wage.

What is any company management's concern about not giving paid sick leave without it being earned? People get sick. That is a fact of life. People do not deserve to have their livelihood jerked out from under them for a mishap that might have been caused by germs from someone else, or from someone else going to work sick when they should have stayed home. What are the companies afraid of - that people might actually get well on their days off and have enough energy to carry out many wonderful days of work? Getting the flu is a fact of life. Companies need to plan for it and not wear their workers out making them work sick and making everyone around them catch whatever they have.