California workers will get five sick days instead of three under law signed by Gov. Newsom

A good start, but five days is still a laughable amount. That's literally one illness, one time being sick.
- Good thing there’s only one flu season … oh wait.

laughs in german 🤣
- Infinite sick days
  
  Not true - you do not get infinite sick days
  You get your regular salary for up to 6 weeks, after that there is a steep drop in pay - since you receive „sick pay“ then. After 72 weeks sick pay ends. Then you might be eligible for social security.
- Cries in a different US state where our company busted us from 40 hours of sick time to 24 to make every plant in the country equal to California's minimum because it's the only state with one of our facilities that has a minimum. I'm curious to see if this ends up bringing all our plants up to 40 hours or they hope none of us lowly factory workers pays attention to this sort of thing. I'll be asking at the next communication meeting.
  
  You know it will be the latter, right?
- Laughs in English, but the real English not American English.
  
  English is descriptive not prescriptive, nobody owns the English language nor has a more correct version, and that's coming from Oxford University.
  
  Thank you for not guffawing in french.
  
  Sick leave in the UK is still pretty shit unless your company covers it or you get a generous amount of paid sick days. SSP is a pittance and needs rethinking and employers attitudes towards illness needs sorting out (pay rises being related to illness being one thing).

Meanwhile in Germany...
You're legally entitled to six weeks of continuous sick leave paid by your employer, after which your health insurer will take over the costs. If you've had sick leave for the same illness multiple times in the same year, these days will be accumulated. After six weeks of regular paid sick leave, you’ll receive Krankengeld (lit. 'sick money') for a maximum of 90 percent of your wage after taxes for up to 72 weeks.
- Yes, true, but i will take this win.
  Newsom increased the minimum wage for fast food workers and now this? I will take these little victories
  
  Tiny victories, really..
- Wasn't there a post on some "ask"-community a couple of days ago with a question like "If you could live in a socialist country, would you?". And I think the implied socialism is something like this?
- Continuous sick leave is different from sick days. Many states require sick leave, and the US guarantees 12 weeks leave through FMLA, though it's unpaid, with the government picking up payments after that (iirc). Regardless, a metric ton of companies offer paid long-term sick leave by just carrying insurance policies that pay out your salary if you have a doctor's note.
  I have unlimited vacation time which also applies to sick days, and the company pushes people to use it. I'm looking to have taken around six weeks this year.
  I'm aware this is not a common occurrence, but it's not as though there's absolutely no laws around this and nobody has paid sick days at all.
  
  Even my shitty little country has universal healthcare and paid sick leave. Employees can call in sick for couple of days, after which they have to open up a sick leave with the doctor. At this point government picks up paying them good chunk of their salary. After two months there's a mandatory panel of doctors meeting which decides if leave needs to be extended further.

The US Federal Government offers 13 paid sick days a year (that rollover indefinitely)...and between 13 and 26 vacation days (depending on service time)...and all federal holidays off paid. It's not quite on the level of Europe, but it's a damn sight better than most of the rest of the country.
- ~~It's more than that...~~
  ~~6 hrs a pay period for 26 pay periods, divide that by 8 to get days...~~
  ~~19.5 sick days a year.~~
  (I was wrong about that, but still)
  Federal employees have one of the strongest unions in the country. But it's not like they can help people outside their own union.
  The voters need to elect politicians will to make this stuff legislation for every American worker.
  
  It's 4hrs a pay period for 26 pay periods for sick leave, at least in my command. But I'm interested if this varies across the government...
  
  Federal employees are immediately terminated if they strike, so the unions are basically just workplace clubs.
  Government agencies simply pay more and have good benefits because they don't want to deal with turnover.
- Even by Australian standards that is still pretty good, except it's generally 20-30 days annual leave here in any permanent FT job and 10-15 sick days, some of which is already accrued at beginning of employment.
  
  Just to be clear they're talking about jobs working for the federal government.

What kind of success is that? Asking this coming from a country where we have 6 weeks of sick days before the income is covered by the health care system.
- If you tell someone who is starving that you won't give them any food, they might decide there's nothing left to lose and try to fight you for their survival.
  If instead you give that person just a bit of food - not enough to actually feed them, just enough to give them hope of satiation - rather than getting a knife in the ribs you might just get a grateful handshake and thanks.
  They'll still starve, but with far less struggle.
  It's that kind of success.
- Small. It's one state and anywhere run by Republicans is stuck at the federal minimum of 0. This number will never go higher because Republican legislators won't vote for it because they hate workers, and Democratic legislators are from states that already implemented higher wages and sick days so it's a red state problem.
  It's the same way with cannabis legalization and I expect they'll do the same with abortion.
- I have no idea. Answering this coming from a country where social security will cover income after 3 days of sickness.

five fucking sick days is still COMICALLY AND DISGUSTINGLY low. FUCK this out of control capitalism bs

From the headline I thought it's changing from 3 per month to 5 per month. And I thought, good for you California. Then I read it's per year. What the fuck is wrong with you all?
- I currently get 8 hours per year (working for the State of California).

Wait. You guys don't get more than 5 days a year??
If its true I made the right decision to move in UK rather than US.
- Most states don't even get 5, or 3.
  The states that have mandates are (usual suspects incoming):
  Arizona - 40 hours
  California - 40 hours
  Colorado - 48 hours
  Connecticut - 40 hours
  D.C. - 7 days
  Maryland - 64 hours hrs
  Massachusetts - 40 hrs
  Michigan - 40 hrs
  Nevada - 0.01923 hours per hour worked (works out to approximately 40 hours if you work a standard 40hrs/week, 52 weeks/yr
  New Jersey - 40 hrs
  New Mexico - 64 hrs
  New York - 56 hrs
  Oregon - 40 hrs
  Rhode Island - 40 hrs
  Vermont - 40 hrs
  Washington - 40 hrs
  Some cities/counties have their own requirements but I'm not going to list those. I wish the US did better on Healthcare, but, as with everything, it's the blue states dragging the country forward kicking and screaming.
- Wait until you hear that 5 is more than most and most states aren't required to give you any. Federal level has no law for sick leave and it's up to states to make one.
  Some companies are better than others, like my father has 5 days but each day counts up to 5 consecutive days off under 1 time being sick which to me is way more reasonable.

Wow, five whole days!? Fuck off.

Oh thank goodness! a whole extra TWO DAYS! Can ya spare it?
the fact that we have a system in place where you can run out of sick days at all is disgusting.

In Denmark theres no set amount of sick days per year.
I was at a job that had sick "periods", like being sick once could stretch several days, right? Thats still just being sick 1 time.
- Yea same in Germany. I think you can be sick for six weeks and still receive your full wage. After that health insurance pays you at least 70% and at most 90% of your income. Buuuut the money you receive from your insurance is tax free (it may increase the taxes you will have to pay in the future though)

Surprised CA is behind the curve so much on this. Washington gives an hour for every 40 worked which amounts to 5.5 days per year if you are working a 40 hour work week. I think that was passed like a decade ago.
- I don't think you know what the curve actually looks like if you think this is "behind the curve". The majority of states have 0 paid sick leave by law, CA already had 3 days and is increasing it to 5.
  https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/state-local-paid-sick-leave-chart.aspx
  
  I guess I should have rephrased it up at that Washington is so far ahead of the curve (in the US). The whole country is easy behind the curve compared to everywhere else.
- CA has 1 hour for every 30 hours, though yeah you can only earn 48 per year. It's bullshit
- Just made me check mine. I'm in a good union and earn 2.46 hours of sick per 40 hours of work and 3.28 hours of leave per 40 hours of work. A year of work is 2498 hours for us for reference.
  I also get 48 hours of other leave, 16 hours of leave per each of 13 holidays, and I can take my overtime as 1.5 hours of leave per hour worked instead of pay. We also get 240 hours parental leave for a new child.
  Leave accrues whenever we are in a paid status on straight time.
  
  That’s better than most of the country but behind newer companies that are attracting talent by giving them unlimited vacation/sick in writing.
  Either way the US seriously needs to regulate this and require much more. It’s pathetic how behind it is compared a lot of the world.
  
  Unions work

Can employers say you can use your pto for sick time or does it have to be in addition to pto?
- I think it's in addition. I say that because I worked for my company in two different states and they have a special PTO category in their time tracking / HR software for CA sick time.
- The company I work for just merged PTO and sick time into one. Every 40h you gain an additional hour of PTO, so every two months you get 1 more sick/PTO day.
  
  Wow, laughably low
- Since there's no minimum PTO requirement, yes but it has to be marked as sick time. Most employers in a state like California though know that they're going to be the bottom of the barrel if they don't offer more so they do.

From what kind of sickness they expect to recover in 5 days? Cut finger?
- i guess you could get the flu (if it's not too bad - once had it for about two weeks several years ago).
  but then you better NOT need anything else, all year. hopefully you don't have kids either.
- These are state-mandated days off, which are in addition to any provided by the workplace.
  In NY state for instance, our employees have an entire extra week off work they can take than elsewhere in the company. If they don't use these days, they are paid out for them at their normal pay rate.
  
  Usually those other days though are just vacation days.
  Most other countries have those days on top of unlimited sick time.

Five days? Even a lot of smaller, unregulated businesses here in the Phillipines offer way more than that.

LoL that's still so few... it's a step in the right direction but also I would argue a huge amount of employees over there are likely contractor tech workers who if my contract is anything to go off of.... literally don't get any sick days just infinite unpaid days off that they don't actually want you to take any of unless the company needs to save a few dollars. I haven't seen a doctor in years and pretty sure I have a cancer spot on my leg.... but oh well don't have insurance that is any good so I'll just die I guess and my dad and incubator can be upset their one good kid failed to make it rich and support either of them.

This country fuckin sucks lets gooo
- Be grateful for less than 1% of the year off, peasant. Now hold on while I throat this boot

When this happened several years back and they gave us two sick days, our company just went ahead and shifted two of our PTO days to sick days.

wait, that's per year ?

What happens if you are sick more than that?
- Unpaid time off if you're lucky.
  Fired if you're not.
  
  Uhh... how is there not a guillotine in front of every state capitol building?
  I burned out and have been sick for half a year. I've begun working a bit again (aiming for 9 hours / week).
  Full pay throughout.
  Do Americans not realize just how badly they're getting shafted?
- you get fired & end up among the millions of homeless Americans, along with hospital bills. such is life in capitalist America
- Go to work anyway.
- Example:
  Frito Lay originally gave us 7 days sick + 7 days as mandated. Something changed (legalese, idk), this dropped to 7 days total for the calendar year which was the CA days + company days (they were being generous). Which, when played out, ended up with people getting strikes against them after the CA mandated days were used up, as it was seen as repetitive behavior. If they really didn't like you, good fucking luck. They would basically use it as an easy way to get people fired over repeat "offenses".
  This was a while ago, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy, but it was overall, a huge fucking joke.
- For me, personal time comes next then PTO. Personal time is meant for a variety of things but we get 16 hours a year and can be taken in one hour increments. PTO is basically just vacation time and is taken in half day increments.

Too many folks are still having to choose between skipping a day’s pay and taking care of themselves or their family members when they get sick,” Newsom said in a statement announcing his action.
Cool but let's not forget what he did earlier this week. He vetoed a bill that would have allowed striking workers unemployment benefits. All he had to do was sign it
And please don't @me with 'perfect being the enemy of good' kinda responses, it was a true slam dunk for workers and unions (unlike this pittance) and he blocked it..
- There was a lot of discussion on that issue, and the general consensus was that he was right for doing so for several reasons. Finances (worker fund is something like 20B in debt), differences between unemployment and striking, some other stuff.
- That's not even perfect being enemy of good. That's just good that we left on the table.

Not even enough to cover one covid infection (and you can get infected once a month)
- Damn. How many strains are out there?
  
  https://covariants.org/per-country
- Well, a lot of companies use the official CDC recommendation of isolating for five days after a positive test. I know mine does.

Good move from Gavin.

Should be at least onc a month. Good start though

There we go! First he implemented a higher minimum wage and now adding sick time. Solid progress with the state legislators!
- Yeah, I love this man (as much as one can love a politician). He gets shit done, or at least does his damndest to try. The homeless issue still needs to be fixed, but the housing issue has to be fixed first. (And he's trying to do that by doing things like raise the min wage for fast food workers and giving poeple more sick days). He'll be president one day, as long as he doesn't fuck up like... what was his name. Cuomo.

- workers rights improved when workers stopped doing their job and started wrecking shit, not by accepting garbage like this because its 'not as bad as the other guy'
- Sure it's less bad, but it's still pretty dismal.
  Then again it's also mind boggling that you guys can't get medical care for serious issues without the risk of bankruptcy, or that your employers hold the keys to whether or not you can afford to get medical care.
- I left reddit partly cuz of this tone, and im feeling that lemmy will be better if i cannot hear folks like you. Consider working on a less adversarial tone in future comments unless you're an argument junkie

Baby steps I suppose. Currently I have 11 guaranteed and further based on company discretion. Not something i lose sleep over.
- Pretty sure it's 15 days in the rest of the world.

Hooray! America is saved!

I get sweet fuck all for being sick. Unpaid time off.
- That is outrageous. I'm from the Netherlands and just looked up how it is here. You get paid 100% for the first year you're sick, 70% for the second year. Then in most cases you can get financial aid from the government.
  
  Well that would be some kind of long term medical leave at that point. We can get pay for that but it's far less than 100% and I don't think it would last that long.
  
  Holy fuckin moly I'm in favor of more sick leave, but a year before the government takes over is a little fuckin crazy
- Move to California

Ok, I understand how sick days work in USA, and while I dislike the idea, I get it from that point of view.
However... carrying over sick days?! That's where it fails to make any sense. Rewarding people who are not sick.. by allowing them to be more sick? Thanks for nothing I guess. Wouldn't it make more sense to give extra sick days to the people who are more sick than others? Accruing sick days will obviously result in people wanting to use their sick days.
So this system really encourages people to advantage of the system, and the whole thing is soo far away from actually wanting to minimize sick days.
The proper way to minimize sick days is to let sick people stay the fuck away. Even if you have to pay them to stay away, that cost will be recouped by all the other people who don't get sick due to some jackass creeping into the office while being sick, because he can't afford to stay at home.
By having a fixed no. of 5 sick days and encouraging people to use 5 sick days, you'll obviously have 5 sick days for every employee. And then some for when they're actually sick.
I am allowed unlimited paid sick days, but yet I have less than 5 sick days annually. Probably closer to zero. Except for covid two years ago which took 3 (working) days and a weekend and was fully reimbursed by the government to my employer anyway.
The way this is done generally is that when someone has been sick for more than a few days, the government will refund up to the unemployment rate to the employer, so they can maintain the employment relationship without having to worry about massive costs. This is a thousand times better for employers and the state and the employees than having to terminate and employ staff constantly due to some artificial "no. of sick days".
- The idea of carrying over sick days is bizarre. Sorry Dave, we know you're fighting cancer, but you shouldn't have had time off for the flu in the last few years and carried the days over, get back to your desk.
  
  You have it backwards, are you under the impression that you are allocated X amount of days until retirement?
  Sick days are accrued each year, if you can carry them over then every sick day you didn't use gets added to your current year.
  "Dave" could have saved up sick days, from the past years to get more full-time pay. However the fact that he didn't, does not mean that he gets less sick time accrued this year.
- This criticism is dumb.
  Carrying over sick days is fine because the employer already alloted pay for that. Sick days are no different than vacation days from a fiscal perspective, the only difference is you don't need to schedule them and/or there may be specific laws about them.
  You then claim "accruing sick days will make people want to use them"-
  No. In fact the converse is true, sick days that don't carry over pressures employees to take them. Because you are basically losing a vacation day, you would be an idiot to not use all 5 days each year. (In case you are confused, no you don't actually have to be sick to use sick days, many companies have a "don't ask" policy.)
  This doesn't really matter since in the US virtually every employer will cash out the sick time at the end of employment so it costs the same anyway, because as already mentioned the money has already been allocated.
  
  I just think it's silly to allow employers to quantify bodily functions.
  "To all employees: You can use the restroom 3 times weekly. We acknowledge that this isn't enough, so If you do not use the restroom 3 times weekly, you can carry over the unused restroom visits to next week."
  It is just a small amount of PTO and fine if that's how it's used, but it doesn't make any sense in helping people cope wih or prevent sickness.
  I understand the reason to minimize the liability for the employers, but having a rigid system like this only creates needless frustration and conflicts when people are actually sick.
- So what if employees take advantage of the system if they still get their work done? If they don't get their work done, that's when a manager can step in.
  Also 5 sick days a year is abysmal. I'd expect the sick days to get carried over where your sick leave is that low.

Meanwhile my colleague managed to get 40 days paid leave + 30 days paid vacation last year. We're in Germany. Now you say: nice for him. But not really. Someone had to do all the work he couldn't do in those 40 sick days.
Edit: to make myself clearer. He was sick on mondays or fridays usually/conveniently.
Edit2: seems I must've missed that im on /c/antiwork here. Excuse me for careing about my job and getting mad about people making my life difficult.
- That's not his problem. The company shouldn't be running on a skeleton crew. I imagine he didn't choose to be sick for those 40 days?
  
  Well said. People don’t seem to understand that running at 100% capacity and workload is not the natural state of things. Humans aren’t machines (and even mining rigs and other machining equipment don’t chug at 100%, more like 70% as to not reduce lifespan)
  Just because you can work with multiple employees being absent does not mean you should be keeping that status quo and not hire more people to alleviate the burden on the team.
  
  It was always on a Friday or Monday coincidentally.
- Eh it really depends on the company. I'm in the US and once took an entire month (only went in each Friday) off just because I had the time saved up, and my boss at the time was wicked cool.
  Things like this law are not aimed at people like me and your friend that are able to accumulate that much time off.
  
  30 days Vacation is the general rule at my company. 40 days of being sick on mondays or fridays however is not.
- If working hard because someone takes off work because they are sick maybe you should take off Tuesday Wednesday so you don't feel over worked or maybe see if the company can hire enough people so that if one person doesn't show up it doesn't put an unreasonable amount of work onto you. This is a you and the company problem not this coworker using their sick time problem.
- Meinst du Elternzeit oder was?
  
  Ne, tageweise krankmelden.. Immer wieder Montags und Freitags