About the Campaign
The Colorado Paid Sick Days Coalition is led by 9to5, National Association of Working Women, and includes many partner organizations working on behalf of workers, women, children, people of color, business and the state’s public health interest. Colorado’s paid sick days bill (sponsored by Rep. Cherilyn Peniston and Senator Morgan Carroll) would provide one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to 9 days for a full-time worker. The bill would allow workers to take time away from work to recover from illness, receive medical treatment, care for a sick family member, or seek services related to domestic violence. .
Partner Profile
9to5’s mission is to strengthen women’s ability to win economic justice, and their priority issues include work/family policies, eliminating workplace discrimination, and opposing punitive welfare policies. 9to5 has four local chapters, including a Milwaukee 9to5 chapter, which successfully campaigned for paid sick days for all Milwaukee workers in 2008.
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Stories from Colorado
“I live in Denver and I’m the mother of a precocious 4-year-old named Sa’mari, who lives with asthma. I was forced to leave my dream job as a crew leader at a fast food restaurant because I had no access to paid sick days and my employer refused to allow me the time to be away from work when my daughter had an asthma episode.
The breaking point for me came the day when Sa’mari experienced a brutal asthmatic episode and the child care director called my job with a message that my daughter needed to be picked be right away. But the restaurant was particularly busy that day and the manager choose not to pass along the message until the end of my shift. These days, I works as a part-time political canvasser, a job that still doesn’t offer paid sick days but at least offers me the opportunity to manage both my care-giving duties and my paid work duties. I want to see Congress pass the Healthy Families Act, so parents like me won't be punished for doing the right thing for our children.”
— Tahirah, Denver, Colorado (story from 9to5, National Association of Working Women: http://www.9to5.org/local/colorado/media/av/tahira-foster-needs-paid-sick-days)
“There is a lot in the news about the availability of the H1N1 vaccine. I couldn’t afford a flu shot even if there was one available to me. But there’s another scary thing about the second wave of flu virus expected this winter: Too many people infected with the flu don’t have the opportunity to keep it to themselves. All the experts and the Centers for Disease Control keep saying that if you think you’re sick with the flu you should stay home from work. And, unless you’re so sick that you need to see a doctor, you should just hunker down in your own little space until 24 hours after your fever breaks.
But I don’t have paid sick days and if I get sick, I can’t stay home from work. If I do, I’ll lose pay that I just can’t afford to lose. And, besides that, my boss gets really, really unhappy whenever we take time off no matter the reason. So, none of the smart employees ever call in sick when we’re ill. We come to work and pass our germs back and forth, back and forth. We’re sick all the time and we probably pass it to the public when we bag the items they’ve purchased or hand them their change. Somehow, I don’t think this is what the health experts have in mind.”
— Laura, Colorado (story from 9to5, National Association of Working Women: http://www.9to5.org/local/colorado/ourwork/news/paid-sick-days-for-all)
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