Bert Caldwell: Sick leave vital benefit for working families

Parents in the United States leave a child behind every day, one who may be sick, but one they cannot skip work to care for. Others may drive off while a foundering parent remains at home. Many may themselves be ill.

As many as 57 million American workers do not get sick pay for any reason. An estimated 500,000 live in Washington. The lower the pay, the less likely sick pay is available. The U.S. is almost alone among industrial nations in its callousness toward households stricken by illness or infirmities.

Federal and state laws do allow extended leave — 12 weeks under the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act — but even that falls short of standards in many other countries. Only those working for companies with more than 50 employees are eligible, and many workers do not take advantage because they need their paychecks or fear losing their job.

If you think the results are acceptable, you have not been reading The Spokesman-Review series on child abuse. Poverty and neglect are among the causes. The lack of sick leave exacerbates those problems.

But any solution is not necessarily the right solution. Washington state’s lawmakers are considering a wrong solution. Their counterparts in Washington, D.C., may be on the right track.

The proposed Healthy Families Act now before Congress would require businesses with more than 15 workers to grant full-time employees seven paid days off to keep appointments, recover from a personal illness or care for sick children. Part-time workers would also get some leave.

Another proposed bill would extend paid benefits up to six weeks. These are going to be popular measures as the nation heads toward the 2008 election.

In Olympia, the state Senate has passed the Family and Medical Leave Insurance Act, which would pay workers with newborns or newly adopted children, or those caring for sick relatives, a $250 stipend a week for five weeks. If they work for a business employing more than 25, their jobs would be protected. Workers at smaller businesses would risk losing their jobs.

Small business operators and the self-employed could participate voluntarily.

The cost of the leave program would be covered by an initial premium of two cents per hour paid entirely by employees. However, the Department of Labor and Industries, which would run the program, estimates the premium would go away in the program’s second year, and resume in 2011 at less than one penny per hour, at least through 2014.

The department estimates the 3 million Washington workers who would be covered by the program punch in for more than 4 billion hours a year. Pennies add up fast levied against that magnitude of input.

The first year’s premiums would generate $83.2 million, more than enough to cover benefit costs and repay half a $20.8 million startup loan from a fund used to cover a portion of workers’ compensation claims.

But even with the initial expenditures behind it, the leave program would continue to carry staggering administrative costs, an estimated $8 million a year. More than 80 new employees would be needed.

All to operate a program paying claims of roughly $26 million. The department will be spending $1 per $3.31 in benefits paid. By comparison, running the workers’ compensation program costs the department less than $1 for every $10 in benefits paid.

Put another way, every claim filed will cost the department $201 to process. The department calculates the average weekly benefit will be $204.80.

An expense ratio like that is unacceptable.

Senate Bill 5659 is sitting in the House Rules Committee. The House version has been stripped of all but its title and statement of intent. Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, says the Rules Committee is looking for ways to cut administrative costs.

Members are also considering limiting the benefit to new parents. And then there’s the position of Gov. Chris Gregoire, who wants the proposal submitted to Washington voters for their approval.

Some provision for sick leave should be made, but SB 5659 and the bureaucracy that goes with it is the wrong approach. If limited to newborns and new adoptions, the plan might work.