Pros and Cons of Paid Sick Leave During the COVID 19 Pandemic

 

Pros and Cons of Paid Sick Leave During the COVID 19 Pandemic

I'm proposing paid sick leave for all those who are sick, displaying symptoms, have been in close contact with known carriers and/or people who have travelled, or whose children are displaying symptoms, for the duration of this pandemic. Below are the pros and cons of paid sick leave.

	PROS	CONS
1	People who are sick, displaying symptoms, have been in close contact with known carriers and/or people who have travelled, or whose children are displaying symptoms could afford stay home and not jeopardize the health of the nation, contribute to the collapse of the healthcare system, jeopardize the health of their coworkers, their clients, or anyone else they may come into contact with in their workplace.	Providing employees with paid sick-leave would result in tens of thousands of employees staying home, thereby jeopardizing the viability of thousands of businesses who rely on these workers coming to work.
2	A major reduction in one of the primary sources of COVID 19 transmission.	Many elected leaders were elected by employers, not their employees, so their political future would be at risk if policies favoured the interests of employees over employers.
3	The ability to slow the spread would be greatly improved and much more effective. Contact tracing of those who previously didn't dare come forward for fear of losing their income will only be possible if all at-risk individuals come forward. This will open up the ability to identify and isolate many more carriers –an indispensable requirement to curtailing the spread of this virus.	Economic growth has been experienced by and contributed to only by the top 1%. Almost none of those whose lives would be saved fall into that category. Spending money to save the lives of the 99% would come at the cost of slowing down or jeopardizing economic recovery. Economic growth has traditionally been achieved by the top 1%.
4	For all the reasons mentioned above thousands if not millions of lives would be saved.	Many seniors and other vulnerable populations would survive the pandemic, but many businesses would not.
5	Some of the most vulnerable would be less vulnerable as a direct result of paid sick leave, including many of those who would not receive paid sick leave.	Corporate over-lords would never forgive a politician for implementing paid sick leave for its employees.

Notice my balanced approach? Five 'pros' and five 'cons'!

That said, the 'pros' I've listed seem to be more about saving lives, while the 'cons' seem to be more about restoring and preserving, if not increasing the inequalities and social injustices of the pre-pandemic social order. While the pandemic may have exposed vulnerabilities it certainly hasn't eliminating them!