Koehn and Friedman/My Turn: Support Sick Leave Initiative (October 21, 2014)
By Shannon Koehn and Liz Friedman, The Recorder
Right now in Massachusetts, almost 1 million workers cannot take a single day of paid sick time to visit the doctor or take care of a sick child or themselves.
In November, we can change this by voting “Yes” on Question 4, which would guarantee access to earned sick time for all workers in our state. MotherWoman is proud to support and endorse this initiative. We understand the imperative in passing this legislation. We know people like Elizabeth Grow of Amherst, a seasonal cafeteria worker, who said that in 2012, when she needed to stay home with her sick daughter Estella, she was told she would lose her $10.50-an-hour job if she did not come to work. Grow had to beg her daughter’s child-care to take her sick 4-year-old daughter so that she wouldn’t lose her job.
There was no sick day policy.
