Sick Leave
At this writing, only one state and three municipalities require employers
to provide employee sick leave benefits, whether with or without sick pay.*
Nearly 75 percent of low-wage U.S. workers do not
have sick leave benefits and about 43 percent of all U.S. workers do
not have paid sick leave benefits.
Elsewhere, providing employee sick leave benefits is voluntary for employers,
as it is with many benefits that
employers have traditionally provided.
Some employers provide sick leave anyway, to attract and retain employees.
Some of those also voluntarily include accrued sick pay in employees' final
paychecks, as incentive to reduce sick leave abuse.
Under the Federal Family
and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), your employee rights might entitle
you to take sick leave to care for yourself or family members, without
losing your job and benefits.
But, to clarify, FMLA leave is not the traditional employer-provided
sick leave benefit addressed in this article and the Act does
not require your employer to issue sick pay to you while you're on
leave.
If your employer does provide a traditional sick leave benefit, then you
are generally entitled to it if you adhere to the related policies. Because
it's a voluntary benefit, your employer may dictate the terms of sick leave,
such as in an employee handbook. For example, to avoid disciplinary action
for missing work due to illness, your employer likely may require you by
policy to submit a written excuse from a doctor.
If you violate an employee sick leave policy, then your employer likely
may take disciplinary action, such as depriving you of sick pay or worse, firing you.
But the courts typically consider all factors involved, to decide whether
or not employers really had good
cause to fire employees for company
policy violation. Consult an attorney about
that.
Read About Employee Benefits for information
regarding avenues of relief, should your employer deprive you of the sick
leave benefit or any other employee benefit to
which you're rightfully entitled.
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