Author: Meg Breslin

With the H1N1 pandemic weighing on everybody’s mind, employee advocacy groups are renewing their push for federal and state legislation making paid sick days mandatory, hoping that flu fears will speed the measures forward.

On the federal level, the National Partnership for Women and Families, a nonprofit group that promotes workplace fairness and health care issues, is lobbying for the Healthy Families Act, which would guarantee workers up to seven paid sick days a year to recover from illnesses or to care for family members during theirs. The measure also provides sick time for medical tests and appointments.

Initially sponsored by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, the legislation now counts Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, among its key sponsors. Hearings on the bill were held in the last Congress, but there has been no action on it since June. Supporters expect the bill to be reintroduced in the next several months, after the debates over health care reform have subsided, says Steffany Stern, policy coordinator for the National Partnership. “H1N1 has really brought this issue to life,” she says.

In Illinois, the Chicago-based advocacy group Women Employed is backing the Healthy Workplace Act. The bill, sponsored by Illinois state Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez, failed to come to a vote in the labor committee last session amid the state’s budget crisis and opposition from business leaders, but Hernandez plans to reintroduce it next year.

Backers say 2.5 million private-sector workers—or 43 percent of the state’s workforce—lack paid sick days, according to a March study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in Washington.

Similar to the proposed federal legislation, the Illinois measure would allow workers to earn up to seven paid sick days a year, accrued hourly for every 30 hours worked, and would provide leave for the illness of the employee and family members, and for medical appointments.

Although no state legislatures have yet passed paid-sick-leave bills, one in Connecticut just narrowly missed earlier this year and laws have been passed in several cities, including San Francisco, Washington and Milwaukee, Stern says. An aggressive campaign for mandatory paid sick days also is under way in New York, and several other states are debating bills, she says.

Many employee advocacy groups agree that the H1N1 pandemic highlights the problems faced by low-wage workers with limited, if any, health benefits.

“Folks in our industry tell us all the time that if they’re sick, they won’t stay at home because there’s no guarantee that they’ll have a job the next day,” says Jose Oliva, a Chicago-based policy coordinator for New York-based Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, an advocacy group for restaurant workers.

Many business groups oppose the legislation out of fears that it would cripple industries already suffering under the recession.

“Obviously, we’re all very concerned about [H1N1], but this is an expensive venture we’re looking at,” says Kim Clarke Maisch, Illinois state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, with 350,000 members nationally and 11,000 in Illinois. “If you don’t have workers show up for work, you’re not pushing a product and you’re not making any money.” She pointed to a June 2008 study by the federation of a similar proposal in California that estimated companies there would cut 370,000 jobs within five years of the bill’s passage because of the cost. The study estimated costs of the proposal at 1 percent of small firms’ sales annually.

The H1N1 flu pandemic has many business leaders concerned, but the strain of the recession and other worries have them holding back on aggressive, and costly, responses. That could prove disastrous.

“There are a lot of companies who might have had generalized discussions about [a pandemic], but when it comes down to it, most don’t have big plans,” says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement firm.

“It’s human behavior that until it hits you square between the eyes, you don’t really want to deal with it,” he says. “And there might be some skepticism that it’s just another bird flu or Y2K kind of thing, where nothing really happens.”

Yet Challenger and other human resources consultants say it’s too risky not to take swine flu seriously, especially when many staffs are operating at bare-bones levels. Companies can’t afford to brush off a threat that could leave much of their remaining workforce incapacitated, or “to create any more ill will,” he says.

1 million and counting
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta estimates that the H1N1 virus has infected more than 22 million people in the U.S. since April, and more than 4,000 people nationwide have died of related complications. The proportion of deaths attributed to influenza already has exceeded what is normally expected at this time of year, with the young hit the hardest, the CDC says.

At the same time, a survey published in September by the Harvard School of Public Health found that the pandemic and resulting absences could have devastating effects on U.S. businesses. Only one-third reported that they could sustain their businesses without “severe operational problems” if the swine flu kept half their workforces out sick for two weeks, according to the survey.

Jennifer Benz, who runs Benz Communications, a San Francisco-based employee benefits communication firm, says many of her clients have begun health education campaigns but have stopped short of analyzing all the issues that could arise from a pandemic.

“It’s very easy to post communications throughout your company, such as washing your hands when you sneeze, but to really look at changing policies is a much different thing,” she says. “It’s a tough business environment right now.”

Many companies may do more if they see absenteeism soar, she says, but by then, it may be too late. “I think a lot of companies have a plan in their back pocket. If their work site gets hit really hard, then they’ll look at ‘How do we respond?’ “

The flu pandemic highlights the importance of providing robust health benefits, such as more than one or two sick days a year, she says. But ad hoc solutions, such as allowing employees to work from home, will fail if a company hasn’t thought them through by, for instance, providing enough access to laptops and ensuring that computer networks can support large numbers of workers dialing in.

Furthermore, just telling employees to stay home doesn’t help if the company has a weak sick-leave policy or doesn’t provide paid sick time for hourly or part-time workers. “For low-wage workers, missing some days off can mean the difference in paying your rent that month,” Benz says.

In many cases, businesses are opting against more aggressive efforts because of cost and privacy concerns, says Russell Robbins, a principal and senior clinical consultant in the Connecticut office of HR consulting firm Mercer. Unfortunately, it’s easy to dismiss warnings over H1N1 as paranoid or an overreaction, but the truth is that the flu is likely to spread, Robbins says.

“I just keep saying that the only way we’re going to weather through this is if we’re prepared for a crisis,” he says. “In other words, make plans now.”

Medical opinion
For some businesses, such as medical facilities, restaurants and food stores, there’s often a greater urgency to implementing a response plan. At Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a task force looked at preparations for everything from a minor outbreak to the worst-case scenario resulting in widespread absenteeism, says Dean Manheimer, senior vice president of human resources. In addition to its comprehensive employee communication plan, Northwestern ramped up an immunization program and reached out to temp agencies to ensure replacements are available. It also is encouraging sick employees to stay home.

“If you are sick, we will send you home,” Manheimer says. “And we have a very robust paid-time-off policy that supports that.”

For now, Northwestern has not considered increasing employee sick days, but the hospital will continue to monitor the spread of the virus and make decisions accordingly, Manheimer says.

Like many large corporations, Chicago-based Boeing Co. started looking at its disaster plans in 2005, after the Asian outbreak of the avian flu caused concern worldwide, says a disaster-planning spokeswoman for the company.

One of the most important considerations was ensuring that employees fully understood their health care benefits and options, including those for sick children and other dependents, the spokeswoman says. Boeing leaders mulled over more costly options too, such as installing infrared devices to detect fevers, but opted against them, at least for now, over concerns that the cost wasn’t justified.

Small-business toll
For small businesses, preparing for flu is a particularly difficult challenge. In an operation of a couple dozen or fewer employees, even a few illnesses can shut down operations.
Samuel Ko, president of Philos Technologies Inc., has roughly 75 employees scattered at plants nationwide, as well as at the company’s Wheeling headquarters. If even a few people are out sick, the metal-surfacing company could be strained. For now, though, Philos offers only one paid sick day a year. Beyond that, employees can try working out an arrangement or provide a doctor’s note, but there are no guarantees of extra time off at their regular pay.

Ko travels extensively in Europe and Asia for his business and takes the H1N1 threat seriously. To prepare for the flu season here, he is cross-training employees to fill in for those who are ill.

Still, he worries about what might happen if the flu spreads through an entire plant or office, and does not have ideas for how to prevent his hourly employees, who have no sick leave, from showing up for work ill. “We need to look at that,” Ko says.

Other small-business owners are trying to head off that exact scenario by assuring their employees that they will be taken care of.

Because his workers butcher and handle meat all day, Bill Begale, owner of Paulina Market, a 22-employee gourmet meat market in Chicago, is taking extra precautions to keep his store sanitary, with frequent hand washing and intensive sanitary procedures. He’s also offered to pay the $20 or $30 it would cost nonunion employees to get flu shots.

Many of Begale’s butchers are covered by union benefits, but he tries to assure the others that they can work things out on a case-by-case basis. Temporary workers are lined up to fill in for ill employees, and Begale says hourly employees who can’t afford to lose their pay to sickness can come in on a day off or use vacation days to get paid.

“If anyone has a fever, they just can’t come in. I’ll send them home. We’ve talked about it a lot here,” Begale says. “They just know what kind of person I am and that I’d work something out.”

If there’s any doubt about the importance of a plan to handle widespread absenteeism this flu season, Dr. Mark Dworkin wants to put it to rest.

“I think this is going to be an extremely difficult influenza season. In fact, it already is,” says Dworkin, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “We’re seeing mostly H1N1 now, but as the season continues, we expect there’ll probably be an increase in the regular flu as well.”

Employers, he says, “should expect substantial absenteeism.”

Dworkin advises business owners to consult government sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has posted on its Web site, www.flu.gov, guidelines for preventing the spread of the flu at work.

Among the most important advice: limiting gatherings of staff in close quarters whenever possible by setting up phone conferences, and encouraging employees to work from home, Dworkin says.

Basic sanitary measures and a high-profile employee educational campaign also are vital.

Employees need reminders to wash their hands frequently, cover their mouths when they cough and stay home when they have a fever. Some additional, oft-ignored advice:

Workers should remain home for a full day after the fever has subsided.

“While there’s no hard science on how long someone is supposed to stay home after a fever, at least 24 hours is a good practice,” Dworkin says.

He is especially concerned about businesses that employ a large number of hourly workers with no paid sick time. He sees a strong incentive in those settings to report to work regardless of health. That can be especially dangerous for restaurants, where there’s the potential for viruses to spread and even cause food-borne illness.

For businesses with a few employees, keeping a staff healthy can be critical. The U.S. Small Business Administration advises owners to consult its Web site, www.sba.gov/flu, for a guide on dealing with the pandemic.

“The very best practice and the most important thing we’re emphasizing is to have a written plan,” says Marianne O’Brien Markowitz, the SBA’s regional administrator in Chicago. “Businesses also need to have contingency planning and to cross-train employees now” to cover for their sick colleagues.

“We can’t control everything that’s going to happen, but what we can control is our level of preparedness,” Markowitz says. “If I’m sitting in California and a wildfire is a few miles away, I’d better be preparing for that.”

She also advises businesses to assign a workplace coordinator to handle questions and concerns. The coordinator also can be in charge of advising an obviously sick employee to go home.

Forcing sick employees to stay home could be the toughest advice to execute if employers haven’t thought things through, says Jennifer Benz, owner of San Francisco-based Benz Communications, a consulting firm focusing on employee benefits communications.

But even healthy employees could face difficult situations if an outbreak closes their children’s schools or day care centers. Beyond that, there’s often a work culture of long hours and high expectations that might be tough to navigate in a pandemic.

“Many of my clients are high-tech companies, where the expectation is to work 24/7,” Benz says. “So you really need to understand the business culture. A lot of it comes down to how well the manager is trained, and are they really managing groups consistent with wellness practices.”