Front-line and low-income workers would benefit most from paid sick days, advocates say

When Toronto Mayor John Tory asked the province Wednesday to increase restrictions in Canada’s largest city to help curb the spread of COVID-19, among the recommendations was support for workers, so they can take time off to isolate and get tested for COVID-19 without fear of losing their incomes or jobs.

Labour advocates say this sounds like yet another call for paid sick days — something they’ve been asking for since the onset of the pandemic.

Deena Ladd, executive director of the Workers’ Action Centre, has been calling for the province to implement job-protected paid sick days for months. The people who don’t have paid sick days are often the most vulnerable — meaning they may choose work over health and safety because they can’t afford otherwise, she said.

“The provincial government has absolutely ignored this issue,” Ladd said.

Kate Hayman, an emergency physician, assistant professor at the University of Toronto and member of the steering committee for the Decent Work and Health Network, has also been calling for universal paid sick leave.

It’s our most precarious workers who are most likely to not have paid sick days — low-income workers, essential workers, people who can’t work from home, marginalized workers and many health-care workers, she said.

And with contact tracing weakening under the growing weight of cases in Ontario — multiple regions have had to on contact tracing because of the sheer volume — it’s time for a sick leave policy that covers everyone, Hayman said, so that workers don’t go to work sick and cause further outbreaks that can’t be properly traced.

During the pandemic, the province is guaranteeing unlimited unpaid, job-protected sick days related to COVID-19. In 2018, Premier Doug Ford cut the two paid days the province once offered. Ontario was one of just three provinces that guaranteed a small number of paid sick days. Now only Quebec and Prince Edward Island require employers to provide paid sick leave, two days and one day respectively. (Federally regulated employees are entitled to three days paid sick leave.)

Patty Coates, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, said though Doug Ford was praised earlier on in the pandemic, his popularity is now waning among labour advocates, who have been asking for paid sick days since the beginning of the pandemic.

“This government has done the bare minimum,” Coates said.

The organizations Ladd, Coates and Hayman represent all want the same thing: for the province to mandate seven permanent days of sick leave for all workers, plus 14 extra days during the pandemic.

The seven days should be provided by the employer, Ladd said, adding that the province should look at subsidizing the other 14 for those businesses struggling to get by right now.

Though the federal government is offering a yearlong emergency benefit for people isolating due to COVID-19, Ladd said the time it takes to access the benefit is prohibitive to many low-income workers.

Coates added that the benefit offers no job protection, meaning employees may feel intimidated or risk losing their jobs if they take it.

Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work, thinks offering provincially mandated paid sick leave is a “no-brainer,” especially during the pandemic, and says the government should carry at least some of the cost.

Less than half of Canadian workers have access to paid sick leave through their employer, he said, and among low-wage workers it’s closer to 11 per cent.

“The overlap between COVID-19 and precarious work is frightening,” Stanford said. It’s “undermining the public health battle” as low-income workers are more likely to get COVID-19.

Ladd said the workers most likely to not have paid sick leave, and therefore to go to work sick, are those in the hardest-hit zones, such as Peel, “an area where temp agency work is rampant.”

Another sector where precarious low-paid work is common — again, without sick days — is long-term care, where Canada has seen a number of deadly outbreaks, she added.

Advocates say a provincial paid sick leave policy would prevent workers from going to work sick and be a key part of an economic recovery.

For Kim Bradley, who supervises a daycare facility in Curtis, Ont., the pandemic has highlighted issues she and her colleagues have always faced: if they get sick and have to stay home, they won’t be paid.

So far, her staff has been lucky, as they aren’t in a COVID hot spot. But if she were working in Peel or Brampton, Bradley said she would be “terrified.”

Many people in this occupation live paycheque to paycheque, Bradley said. They can’t afford to take time off work, nor wait for the federal emergency benefit to arrive.

Having paid sick days would alleviate a lot of anxiety in her workplace, she said, and would remove the health risk many workers face.

“People could die because of this,” she said.

Nita Chhinzer, an associate professor of human resources at the University of Guelph, said more organizations have increased paid sick leave since the pandemic began, according to a survey by the Conference Board of Canada. But many employees who have paid sick days aren’t the ones being exposed to the pandemic on a daily basis, she said.

Chhinzer acknowledges that not all companies can afford to pay for sick days, but says the provinces can. She points to the $19 billion of federal funding announced in July for the provinces to subsidize pandemic emergency measures, including paid sick days, as proof.

One industry that does not often provide paid sick leave is food service. Restaurant industry leaders say that right now, their industry doesn’t have the funds to pay workers for sick days, and that the government would need to fund sick leave if they mandated it.

James Rilett, vice-president for Central Canada of Restaurants Canada, said the organization would consider supporting such a measure, depending on what it looks like.

“Anything that makes it easier for employees and employers to meet … the restrictions in the guidelines, would be something we could support,” Rilett said.

“In our industry employers just can’t afford to take on additional costs.”

Larry Isaacs, president of the Firkin Group of Pubs, said his restaurants are not allowing staff to work sick, but if the government required paid sick days, he would want government funding to help ease the burden.

“There isn’t any money in our industry right now,” he said.

Correction – Nov. 20, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said that during the pandemic, the Ontario government is guaranteeing 10 unpaid, job-portected sick days related to COVID-19. In fact, the province is guaranteeing unlimited, unpaid sick days.

Rosa Saba is a Calgary-based business reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: