You're sick with H1N1 flu and even sicker over being out of work without pay. At least one U.S. Congressman wants to help with that. He's proposing emergency legislation now to grant swine flu victims five days of paid leave. How's it gonna work? CNN's Lisa Sylvester has details.
Reporter: If you come down with the flu, you are told to stay home until you get better. That's the advice of doctors, the Centers for Disease Control, even many bosses are saying stay away.
The day of being a hero by coming in sick those days are over. The message now needs to be your a hero if you're sick and you stay home so please don't come to work.
Reporter: According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, 57 million American workers have no paid sick leave. Missing work can mean a deep cut in a monthly paycheck or even possibly a pink slip. Congressman George Miller has introduced the H1N1 Flu Emergency Sick-Leave bill. The legislation would grant five days of sick leave a year if an employer directs a sick worker to stay home or go home. It would apply to companies with 15 or more employees that do not already provide that amount of sick leave. Part-time workers would also be eligible on a pro-rated basis. The emergency law would sunset after two years, but businesses would have to foot the bill. Representative Miller says it's in their interest to keep sick workers out of the workplace and away from customers.
We have thousands -- tens of thousands of workers who are working with the public every day in food service, in cafeterias, school lunch programs and airports and hospitality. Those people are generators of additional infections of H1N1 so we got to get them get home, get well, and then go back.
Reporter: According to the Centers for Disease Control, a sick worker can infect 10% of co-workers. Congressman Miller has scheduled a hearing in two weeks on the bill. The legislation will have an impact on some of the workers in the service industry, restaurant and hotel workers who may not currently have a sick leave policy. Now, we did receive a comment from the American Hotel and Lodging Association. They said that while most of their members know it is better to let sick employees go home to recover, they do see this bill as "nothing more than an excuse to force more paid leave mandates on employers in an already weak economy."
Lisa Sylvester. CNN. Washington.
As always, we would love to know what you think about this. We kind of thought it was a talker this morning. Do you actually think that Congress should pass some sort of bill that would mandate employers grant their employees emergency sick leave with direct reference to H1N1? Leave us your comments. You can go to cnn.com/heidi and leave your comments there. We, of course, will share some of them with you a little bit later on, right here in the CNN Newsroom.
Reporter: If you come down with the flu, you are told to stay home until you get better. That's the advice of doctors, the Centers for Disease Control, even many bosses are saying stay away.
The day of being a hero by coming in sick those days are over. The message now needs to be your a hero if you're sick and you stay home so please don't come to work.
Reporter: According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, 57 million American workers have no paid sick leave. Missing work can mean a deep cut in a monthly paycheck or even possibly a pink slip. Congressman George Miller has introduced the H1N1 Flu Emergency Sick-Leave bill. The legislation would grant five days of sick leave a year if an employer directs a sick worker to stay home or go home. It would apply to companies with 15 or more employees that do not already provide that amount of sick leave. Part-time workers would also be eligible on a pro-rated basis. The emergency law would sunset after two years, but businesses would have to foot the bill. Representative Miller says it's in their interest to keep sick workers out of the workplace and away from customers.
We have thousands -- tens of thousands of workers who are working with the public every day in food service, in cafeterias, school lunch programs and airports and hospitality. Those people are generators of additional infections of H1N1 so we got to get them get home, get well, and then go back.
Reporter: According to the Centers for Disease Control, a sick worker can infect 10% of co-workers. Congressman Miller has scheduled a hearing in two weeks on the bill. The legislation will have an impact on some of the workers in the service industry, restaurant and hotel workers who may not currently have a sick leave policy. Now, we did receive a comment from the American Hotel and Lodging Association. They said that while most of their members know it is better to let sick employees go home to recover, they do see this bill as "nothing more than an excuse to force more paid leave mandates on employers in an already weak economy."
Lisa Sylvester. CNN. Washington.
As always, we would love to know what you think about this. We kind of thought it was a talker this morning. Do you actually think that Congress should pass some sort of bill that would mandate employers grant their employees emergency sick leave with direct reference to H1N1? Leave us your comments. You can go to cnn.com/heidi and leave your comments there. We, of course, will share some of them with you a little bit later on, right here in the CNN Newsroom.
