In a March 13 letter, Scout Gregerson argues in favor of L.D. 369, which would require that employers with over five employees provide paid sick leave.

The bill goes to great length to specify what is meant by “family member” and for what purposes such leave should be provided (e.g., an employee’s “mental or physical illness, injury or health condition”). All of these stipulations, obviously, are required because otherwise many people would take paid sick leave under more questionable conditions.

In other words, getting paid while not going to work is, for many, quite desirable. And that implies that the policy may be counterproductive when it comes to maintaining health. Getting a paid vacation while sick means that doing the work to stay healthy (exercise, eating properly and so on) is that much less valuable.

The policy could be made more productive by giving anyone who had not used their paid sick leave to take that remaining amount of time off with pay. This would have the further advantage of eliminating those stipulations mentioned above; everyone would simply earn paid time off at the rate spelled out in the bill (no less than one hour off for every 30 hours worked).

Why pay people for being sick when it would make more sense to pay them whether or not they were sick?

William Vaughan Jr.

Chebeague Island


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.