Paid Sick Days

April 24, 2013

As President of the New York City Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO) , I represent over 1.3 million workers across many industries and professions in the private sector, public sector and building and construction trades. Many of these workers have the benefit of collective bargaining agreements that...

MomsRising Together

Vincent Alvarez

Paid Sick Days

April 24, 2013

Sick days matter to me as a mom. I am a single mother so I have always been the parent who gets those dreaded calls -- the daycare number pops up on your phone and your heart sinks into your stomach. "Your son is sick, you need to get him now." My son is 8 now, so he is past the sick-every-five-...

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Charlie Rose

Paid Sick Days Immigration Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

As one of 11 kids in a migrant farm worker family, I toiled in the fields of California’s Central Valley under the bleakest of conditions in the 1950s and ‘60s, before Cesar Chavez’s movement offered us any relief. Getting sick or injured or showing symptoms of pesticide poisoning were not options...

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Maria Elena Durazo

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

"We must move beyond advocating for earned paid sick days, to implementing a culture of self-care in our movement. The lip service that is paid to self-care is not enough, and change can only occur if we take a people-first approach to our work." In March, the Generational Alliance brought together...

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Carmen Berkley

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

My name is Luz Amelia Arevalo, I am a professional domestic worker in Los Angeles California. Because of economic necessity, my own family -- my own grandchildren -- are far away. I care for the children of my employers, and I grow to love them as I do my own grandchildren. There are many women...

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Luz Amelia Arevalo

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

The year after I graduated from college I waited tables and worked in retail, just like my parents always wanted. Kidding! Truth be told, I had always envisioned going to law school but hesitated once it came time to send in a deposit. I hadn’t given much thought to the other options I had, and the...

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Madeline Shepherd

Paid Sick Days

April 24, 2013

My name is Cathy Youngblood, and I am a hotel housekeeper at the Hyatt Andaz in West Hollywood, California. Those of us who work in hotels come into contact with hundreds of different people from all over the world daily. And of course, some of those folks are going to be sick, whether it is...

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Cathy Youngblood

Paid Sick Days

April 24, 2013

In most of the developed world, when people get sick or have a sick child, they take a sick day and take care of themselves and their families, keeping their co-workers, customers and clients safe. And they rest comfortably, knowing that getting sick won’t mean they can’t pay the rent or provide...

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Elizabeth Shuler

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

For nearly a year, Ariel Kempf was a server at a very busy breakfast and lunch café in Portland when, one day, while playing with her dog on the beach, she tore several tendons in her right leg. She had no health insurance, so she went to an urgent-care clinic where she was told she couldn’t put...

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Tara Murphy

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post . Patricia, a home health care aide and 9to5 member from Colorado, attended to a man who is quadriplegic. When Patricia came down with food poisoning, her life unraveled. Her condition progressed to pneumonia caused from the vomit that spilled...

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