Crisis Conversations: Family and Medical Leave in the Time of Coronavirus

“It’s scary. I worry about taking the virus home. I worry about the workers that are in the store. I worry about myself.”- Cyndi Murray, WalMart worker on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic.

Cyndi Murray is worried and scared. As the number of coronavirus cases in the United States climbs into the hundreds of thousands and the death toll reaches into the thousands, she continues to work. A nineteen-year associate at Walmart, she clocks in, wondering if she’ll leave as healthy as she entered, aware that she could likely contract the virus during her shift. The hours pass, the anxiety remains. While on her shift, Cyndi worries about her co-workers and the customers. Even when she leaves work, Cyndi is scared she’ll take the virus home, the one place that should be a safe space, a haven in the midst of a pandemic. She disinfects herself and everything she’s touched the best she can before she goes home.

This is her new normal. Cyndi continues to work because she doesn’t have paid time off which would allow her to stay home until the danger passes. If she does begin to experience symptoms, she can’t take time off from work to self-isolate because she doesn't have access to adequate paid sick days. For every 30 hours she works, she only gets one hour in paid sick days. Millions of workers across the United States face a similar predicament.

Until recent weeks, the United States had been virtually alone among advanced economies in not guaranteeing workers paid sick days or paid family leave, instead leaving it entirely up to employers to voluntarily offer such policies. Some do. Many don’t. About a quarter of workers lack paid sick leave, which means they either go to work sick or jeopardize their livelihood by staying home. Many workers without paid sick days, including grocery, retail, and service workers, provide essential services that keep society functioning on a daily basis, especially during this pandemic. The workers stocking the shelves in the grocery stores, delivering packages, preparing meals, managing transportation–many lack paid sick days, and due to the low wages they receive, cannot afford to stay home. They need to make an income, so they keep working.

In light of the pandemic, Congress set out to include paid sick days and paid family and medical leave provisions in its emergency legislative packages, namely in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The new emergency law, signed by President Trump on March 18, extends paid family and medical leave to parents whose children are home because of school closures. The law also requires employers to provide ten paid sick days to full-time workers who are quarantined or need to care for another individual with the virus—expenses that the government will reimburse. Legislation for national family-supportive policies had been stalled for years, so this move by Congress is a major sign of progress.

While the passage of this bill is historic and timely, the provisions are woefully inadequate. Vicki Shabo, senior fellow at the Better Life Lab, says Congress’s work isn’t done. Shabo has been calling attention to a glaring gap in the new law: the paid sick days and paid leave provisions do not apply to businesses with more than 500 employees, and businesses with fewer than 50 employees can petition the government to be exempted.

What does this mean for Cyndi, who works for the largest private employer in the country?

Basically, it means that without a federal mandate, her access to emergency paid sick days depends entirely on her employer’s discretion. Some large corporations already do offer employees paid sick days, but often only to corporate employees, or headquarters rather than franchise locations and hourly employees. Moreover, even large companies that have now agreed to offer employees like Cyndi emergency paid sick days in response to the coronavirus do not always make it easy or possible for workers to take time off to self-quarantine or protect themselves. Wal-Mart announced an emergency paid sick days policy for workers directly affected by coronavirus, but employees first have to become sick and then get an official diagnosis from a doctor in order to receive paid time off. Assuming workers can gain access to a Covid test, by the time they receive proof of diagnosis and present it to their employer, their whole family might have been exposed, in addition to their customers and colleagues.

Consequently, many people working on the front lines–at grocery stores, as home health aides, in delivery services, and food services–run a high risk of contracting the virus, and without access to guaranteed paid sick days, will go to work sick, unable to self-quarantine or protect themselves. If they contract coronavirus and have to recuperate at home, they’ll risk losing their income if they can’t provide proof of diagnosis. It’s a dangerous game of lose-lose, which may cost people their lives.

What can be done to protect all workers, provide them with the support they need, and promote public health?

The Better Life Lab has two ideas. First, demand more of Congress. Our senior fellow, Vicki Shabo has relentlessly spoken about what Congress should do to strengthen the paid sick days and paid family leave provisions. In her most recent piece, For Workers on the Front Lines and Working Families with Care Needs, Congress’ Work is Not Done, she argues that Congress must include better provisions on these issues in its fourth legislative emergency response package:

Secondly, until policymakers address the business carve outs leaving millions of workers behind, consumers can pressure large businesses to do the right thing. The Better Life Lab created the corporate paid sick days tracker to hold businesses accountable and to share information about the steps they have or have not taken to ensure the health of their workers, and thereby, the public.

The family-supportive policy landscape is changing quickly. But we must ensure that the new policies enacted interrupt, rather than perpetuate, systemic inequalities that are detrimental not only to the workers on the frontlines, but to our collective public well being.

Tune in to our next episode with author Eve Rodsky. We’ll be chatting about how the pandemic is impacting the division of labor at home. Remember, this is a place for you to join the conversation and share your story. RSVP to join the community.

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