Not everyone is on board with the idea of employees receiving 10 mandatory paid sick days per year.
David Duplisea, CEO of the Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce, said the chambers in New Brunswick sent a letter urging the prime minister not to mandate the policy permanently.
“If there are issues with employees that are not able to take sick time if they do get sick, then those are issues that we can address in recovery programs,” he said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would be discussing with provinces how to mandate 10 days of paid sick leave to employees. This was after NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announced he would withhold support if the federal government doesn’t deliver paid sick leave.
“Many of our members already provide benefits and sick leave to our membership, as a matter of fact, we estimate that it’s a fairly significant portion. We know that of the larger members, pretty much all of them do already do provide benefits and sick leave,” he said.
Duplisea said he estimates that large and medium-sized companies, which make up about half the chamber membership, pay for sick days to employees.
He said the chambers would prefer to see sick leave addressed in social policy programs.
“We would prefer to see government consider it under those types of programs as opposed to mandating is as the businesses have to pay sick leave,” he said.
Statistics Canada reports 10.2 days lost per worker due to illness in New Brunswick in 2019.
Daniel Legere, the president of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour, said they’ve been after the province to amend the minimum standards acts to include paid sick days.
“That’s something that’s lacking for workers and certainly this whole pandemic has really brought that to light,” he said.
Legere said at the beginning of the pandemic, some workers had to choose between receiving a paycheque or to stay home if they were showing symptoms of COVID-19. Now health officials are discussing the possibilities of a second wave of COVID-19.
“So this paid sick leave would put both businesses and workers in a better position should a second wave hit,” he said.
Legere said people going in to work while sick has an impact on businesses and their bottom line, so in his opinion having paid sick days is almost like insurance.
“I think businesses are overreacting a bit. I think they’re going from the assumption that everybody’s going to take 10 days sick leave which isn’t the case, because sick leave, you take that if you’re sick. They’re not vacation days, they’re sick days,” he said.
Legere said we don’t know the details of what this legislation would look like yet, but the alternative to paid sick leave is having workers come into work sick which can be devastating for big and small companies.
He said he wouldn’t be opposed to anything that would help workers.
Legere said it’s a small price to pay for employers who benefit from other funding and programs.
Duplisea said under normal circumstances, the situation would be different, but there’s $150 billion devoted to COVID-19 recovery federally.
“We urge government not to do a broad-brushed approach and to legislate paid sick leave because it is combining social policy with economic recovery policy and it’s doing it on a permanent basis, and that’s where we have a problem with this. The businesses already can’t afford it now.”