Obama Just Guaranteed Sick Days For More Than A Million Workers

[Anthony60]

He can chose how to administrate them sure, he can't deny people a reasonable number of days to rest if they were to get sick.

Workers missing out on workdays because of preventable illnesses turning into more serious problems damage the economy in the billions. These include pulmonary issues, hurt muscles etc.

The government as such has a legitimate concern in diminishing the probability of that happening. None of this restricts anybody's freedom as determining whether or not people can rest is NOT A RIGHT YOU HOLD.

No, they don't. It's none of the government's business and they should only be doing what they are authorized to do by the Constitution. And they should be slapped down every time they overstep their authority.

Why do I have to explain this to an adult?

Because this way I know that you are throwing in with making the government more powerful and going beyond their Constitutional allowances and against our Constitutional protections from the federal government.

 

[Hatuey]

No, they don't. It's none of the government's business and they should only be doing what they are authorized to do by the Constitution. And they should be slapped down every time they overstep their authority.

The government is authorized to look out for the well being of its citizens. A sick populace is a threat to national security in case you haven't noticed.

Because this way I know that you are throwing in with making the government more powerful and going beyond their Constitutional allowances and against our Constitutional protections from the federal government.

Do you have a constitutional right to make people sick through your personal beliefs on sick leave?

Do you believe that if a worker is sick, you should have the right to determine whether or not they rest?

Yes or no questions.

 

[Anthony60]

the government does not make that business owner do anything except comply with federal requirements
if the contractor does not want to offer sick leave it does not have to
and that decision to not offer sick leave will bar that contractor from receiving any federal contracts

Why should they have these requirements? The company is already operating legally, who asked them to step in and spend more of our money?

 

[Anthony60]

The government is authorized to look out for the well being of its citizens. A sick populace is a threat to national security in case you haven't noticed.

Really? I never heard that one. What, are they like our parents?

Do you have a constitutional right to make people sick through your personal beliefs on sick leave?

That's just a ridiculous question.

Do you believe that if a worker is sick, you should have the right to determine whether or not they rest?

When did I say I did? I did not argue for that at all. Are you having trouble following the discussion? Seems like you are.

Yes or no questions.

Who cares?

 

[Hatuey]

Really? I never heard that one. What, are they like our parents? That's just a ridiculous question. When did I say I did? I did not argue for that at all. Are you having trouble following the discussion? Seems like you are. Who cares?

Then we both agree that the government has a legitimate role in ensuring the populace doesn't become needlessly ill. This includes ensuring workers have a number of days in which they can rest and not risk getting others sick.

Yes? What is your problem with this legislation then?

 

[eohrnberger]

Oh yes. It increases the costs of economic activity. While I have always been extremely careful to send people home that have contagious illness or risk making mistakes, making it to general law will disadvantage the country. If you look up the number of days taken in sick leave and do the maths, you might understand better. The German numbers were easiest to pull:
https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/Indikatoren/QualitaetArbeit/Dimension2/2_3_Krankenstand.html

It is always the same. When you increase costs, you will at the same time tend to reduce pay, total wage sum or number of jobs in the economy. It is really very basic economics.

Yeah, I have to admit that was my first thought too. "Isn't government too expensive already? Now it's only going to get more expensive."

 

[eohrnberger]

Wow, they roll over indefinitely too.

Yeah, that's a bad policy decision. You get abuses like months and months of accumulated sick time, have to pay them, and in addition another worker to cover that work, so twice the cost and 1/2 the work.

Government types just don't know how to manage, nor how to negotiate. No wonder government costs more and delivers less.

 

[justabubba]

Why should they have these requirements? The company is already operating legally, who asked them to step in and spend more of our money?

the government is buying goods and services. why should it not be able to specifiy what it wants and how it wants those goods and services to be produced

 

[washunut]

Except if there were ZERO productivity gains from offering sick pay, and the data show the opposite, the 7 days represent about 2.6% of a work year, so the difference is $40 million versus $39 million, and that's assuming the company's costs are all wages, and that none of their work force (unlikely) has a decent benefits package that already includes vacation and sick days, and that the company doesn't absorb the added costs with lower nominal wages, or GASP!! very slightly lower profits to get the low bid, etc.....

I get your point, but our debt problems really aren't going to be affected by this minor change. And we disagree, but IMO this is the right thing to do for employees getting paid by the Feds, directly or indirectly. I just don't see earning sick pay over time as an extravagant employee benefit - just something that should be normal for a decent employment package.

First I agree that companies should if possible allow sick pay. I do know of companies that give X number of days to an employee. They don't call it sick pay so not sure how that works under this new executive order.

Then there is a flaw in the logic with numbers. Very few companies do ALL of their business with the government. Also most employees may work on several jobs during the year and there are many folks that are not assigned to pay specific job. So lets say there is a company without a specific sick pay rule, they can't give sick days only to those employees who are assigned to a government job and not the rest of the company. Therefore the expense is materially higher than your 2.6%.

So getting into details is messy and I'm sure Obama would rather work on is putting than figure this out. It is helped of course because most people don't think through the impact of an issue. Even people debating the point seem to have not talk through what they are debating. Just having fun at their computer, which is fine. Just what I am doing now.

 

[Anthony60]

Then we both agree that the government has a legitimate role in ensuring the populace doesn't become needlessly ill. This includes ensuring workers have a number of days in which they can rest and not risk getting others sick.

Yes? What is your problem with this legislation then?

Oh, then we both agree that the government should not be mandating sick days. Good.

 

[Anthony60]

the government is buying goods and services. why should it not be able to specifiy what it wants and how it wants those goods and services to be produced

Because it doesn't have that power granted to it in the Constitution.

 

[trouble13]

Except the business owner that no longer has the freedom to choose what his policy on sick days is.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think you might be missunderstanding something about this. A company only has to provide that benefit to the employees that are on that job while they are on it. The company does not have to offer any of its other employees sick time and it only has to offer sick time while they are on that job. This does not cost the company anything. The taxpayer gets this bill.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

[trouble13]

It's JACK-BOOTED THUG TYRANNY, I TELL YA!!!! How DARE the black guy in the White House even THINK that it might be a good idea to encourage people who are sick to actually stay home for a day or two to recover, instead of coming into work (either that, or lose money or even get fired) and run the risk of spreading the disease to other workers or customers! Better to run the risk of spreading disease to other workers or customers than to force companies to lose even one penny allowing their workers to stay home when they're sick!!!!

In a way it is tyranny but not for the reasons you gave.but rather how he did it. This is somerhing that should have congressional approval.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

[washunut]

I think you might be missunderstanding something about this. A company only has to provide that benefit to the employees that are on that job while they are on it. The company does not have to offer any of its other employees sick time and it only has to offer sick time while they are on that job. This does not cost the company anything. The taxpayer gets this bill.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

Practically speaking what you are saying can't be done. How do you have some of your employees with a different benefits package some of the time? Also what about people that are not on site, but support the people that are. For example what about the accounting or human resource departments, do they have to get this benefit. What if the benefit is called something else does that count?

 

[trouble13]

Except if there were ZERO productivity gains from offering sick pay, and the data show the opposite, the 7 days represent about 2.6% of a work year, so the difference is $40 million versus $39 million, and that's assuming the company's costs are all wages, and that none of their work force (unlikely) has a decent benefits package that already includes vacation and sick days, and that the company doesn't absorb the added costs with lower nominal wages, or GASP!! very slightly lower profits to get the low bid, etc.....

I get your point, but our debt problems really aren't going to be affected by this minor change. And we disagree, but IMO this is the right thing to do for employees getting paid by the Feds, directly or indirectly. I just don't see earning sick pay over time as an extravagant employee benefit - just something that should be normal for a decent employment package.

I ahree that itsva relativily small amount thats being add compred to how much debt we already carry but when do we start talking about reducing that debt instead of adding to it?

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

[trouble13]

Practically speaking what you are saying can't be done. How do you have some of your employees with a different benefits package some of the time? Also what about people that are not on site, but support the people that are. For example what about the accounting or human resource departments, do they have to get this benefit. What if the benefit is called something else does that count?

I have worked whats called scale.jobs in the past. That means any labor hours allocated to that job are paid at the scale wage for my title.

In terms of sick pay, if i have 40hrs labor on that job i might of earned 8hrs sick pay. I imagine its the same for office people. Whatever tasks they perform that are assioated with the project are logged as such and they earn sick time based on that.

If sick pay isnt part of the company policy it wont be accurred unless your actually on that project. Guys will fight to get on those jobs because it pays so well for the same work they do on other jobs for much less.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

[JasperL]

First I agree that companies should if possible allow sick pay. I do know of companies that give X number of days to an employee. They don't call it sick pay so not sure how that works under this new executive order.

Then there is a flaw in the logic with numbers. Very few companies do ALL of their business with the government. Also most employees may work on several jobs during the year and there are many folks that are not assigned to pay specific job. So lets say there is a company without a specific sick pay rule, they can't give sick days only to those employees who are assigned to a government job and not the rest of the company. Therefore the expense is materially higher than your 2.6%.

So getting into details is messy and I'm sure Obama would rather work on is putting than figure this out. It is helped of course because most people don't think through the impact of an issue. Even people debating the point seem to have not talk through what they are debating. Just having fun at their computer, which is fine. Just what I am doing now.

I was just using 7 days (the sick time)/260 work days = 2.6%.

But I get your point and it's a good one. The charity I help out sometimes has a lot of veterans as clients and we have a VA contract. I'm assuming we're covered by the EO and even though the VA people are a separate group (about half the population of residents) no doubt we'd have to offer sick pay to the entire staff since they all do some work on the VA, and even if not it wouldn't be feasible to carve them out for a separate package. We give sick pay already, although I don't know the details, but if it's not up to par we'll have to change it across the board. That's OK, obviously, even if the employees didn't get sick pay now. It would be a necessary cost of getting that large government contract for us.

 

[justabubba]

Because it doesn't have that power granted to it in the Constitution.

you are saying the Constitution does not provide for the government to make purchases of goods and services

i say you are quite wrong

 

[JasperL]

Because it doesn't have that power granted to it in the Constitution.

Sure it does. The payer of a contract can dictate terms of the contract, certainly. And there is no problem with the Feds regulating working conditions for private firms - been doing it for decades. You don't like it but there is no constitutional burden.

 

[Anthony60]

I think you might be missunderstanding something about this. A company only has to provide that benefit to the employees that are on that job while they are on it. The company does not have to offer any of its other employees sick time and it only has to offer sick time while they are on that job. This does not cost the company anything. The taxpayer gets this bill.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

And what is so great about the taxpayer getting the bill? Why should that be added on? What gives the government the power to do that?

 

[trouble13]

And what is so great about the taxpayer getting the bill? Why should that be added on? What gives the government the power to do that?

I wasnt advocating for it. I was just explaining a missconveption about it. I think scale wage requirements are not beneficial overall. They drive up costs for gov funded funded projects enourmously.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

[JasperL]

I ahree that itsva relativily small amount thats being add compred to how much debt we already carry but when do we start talking about reducing that debt instead of adding to it?

Like I said, I understand the point, but the discretionary side of the budget, and this is mostly non-defense discretionary which is even smaller, and private contracts on that side which is even smaller, just isn't what's driving our budget issues. It's really ALL about SS, Medicare, and healthcare across the board - Medicaid, VA, ACA, healthcare for fed employees, etc. And if we want to focus on the discretionary side, then defense is where all the money is spent. And we've got a lot of defense contractors with fat, lucrative as hell contracts over there and balancing the budget on the backs of what will be the lowest paid people across the board getting federal money seems misguided at best.

 

[gdgyva]

Except if there were ZERO productivity gains from offering sick pay, and the data show the opposite, the 7 days represent about 2.6% of a work year, so the difference is $40 million versus $39 million, and that's assuming the company's costs are all wages, and that none of their work force (unlikely) has a decent benefits package that already includes vacation and sick days, and that the company doesn't absorb the added costs with lower nominal wages, or GASP!! very slightly lower profits to get the low bid, etc.....

I get your point, but our debt problems really aren't going to be affected by this minor change. And we disagree, but IMO this is the right thing to do for employees getting paid by the Feds, directly or indirectly. I just don't see earning sick pay over time as an extravagant employee benefit - just something that should be normal for a decent employment package.

so, for ****s and grins, lets say Donald wins in November

And he writes an EO stating that no company that provides vacation or sick days can now bid on government contracts

same thing that Obama has done here, but in reverse

i bet you arent going to like that much, and neither will all of the employees of those companies as they suddenly lose company benefits, and have to go to the ACA websites for their coverage

This is why EO's suck....and presidents that use them, suck more

If he wants this changed...fine

Get it through congress with a full fledged law....not some edict of a guy with a pen and the will to make crap happen

 

[justabubba]

so, for ****s and grins, lets say Donald wins in November

And he writes an EO stating that no company that provides vacation or sick days can now bid on government contracts

same thing that Obama has done here, but in reverse

i bet you arent going to like that much, and neither will all of the employees of those companies as they suddenly lose company benefits, and have to go to the ACA websites for their coverage

This is why EO's suck....and presidents that use them, suck more

If he wants this changed...fine

Get it through congress with a full fledged law....not some edict of a guy with a pen and the will to make crap happen

actually, the outcome of your imagined scenario would be much worse

those employees of contractors who have the skills the government needs and wants would find alternative places to work, where their current level of benefits is continued

that would occur less often in remote locales where competition for good employees was not as intense, but those employees would be looking to move to another job

and the employees who remain working on those federal contracts would be those who could not go elsewhere because their skill set was not in demand, or because they had family circumstances that would not allow them to relocate to accept a job with compensation equivalent to what they had prior to the XO rescinding their sick leave and health benefits

the end result is a lesser grade of employees performing the work needed by the government. hell of a job, brownie

 

[trouble13]

Like I said, I understand the point, but the discretionary side of the budget, and this is mostly non-defense discretionary which is even smaller, and private contracts on that side which is even smaller, just isn't what's driving our budget issues. It's really ALL about SS, Medicare, and healthcare across the board - Medicaid, VA, ACA, healthcare for fed employees, etc. And if we want to focus on the discretionary side, then defense is where all the money is spent. And we've got a lot of defense contractors with fat, lucrative as hell contracts over there and balancing the budget on the backs of what will be the lowest paid people across the board getting federal money seems misguided at best.

You are preaching to the quire about medicare/cade and SS driving the debt problem. Even military spending is a distant 3rd for drivers of debts.

To be fair i think you might be under estimating the impact things like this have because it afgects both entitlement and discreationary spending. They all use independent contractors.

It would be interesting to find out how much overspending they do across the board. Ild be willing to bet if they used an open market bidding without dictating labor wages and benefits it would be a substantial amount. Truth is they do it because the politicans are skimming from them.

It would not surprise me to find out that inflated labor costs is the 4th largest driver of the debt.

Lets say for example that this cost turns out to be 5% of our total budget. Thats significant in two ways. 5% of 20 trillion is a lot and its a hidden cost inside all the other budgets so it makes their numbers artifically inflated.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk