Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces

Everyone Gets Sick But Not Everyone Has Time to Get Better!

We are co-leading the Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces, a group advocating to ensure that all workers in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania have a chance to earn paid sick days to care for themselves and their families.

Women continue to be over represented in low-wage positions that are significantly less likely to offer paid sick days. Yet working women remain the primary caregivers, and for many women, staying home to care for a sick child or other family member means losing a day’s pay or their job altogether. In a country where we put such an emphasis on family values, it is unconscionable to make people choose between caring for a sick child or having the money to pay for that child’s food, shelter, and clothing.

40% of workers in Philadelphia do not have a single paid sick day to care for themselves or a loved one. 

WOMEN'S WAY is working to pass earned sick days legislation at the city level. The Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces (Bill No. 080474), which would require employers in the City of Philadelphia to allow employees to earn a minimum number of paid sick days, was passed by City Council in June 2011, but vetoed by Mayor Nutter shortly thereafter.

We quickly shifted strategy and were able to pass an abbreviated version of the bill that requires businesses that contract with the City of Philadelphia to allow their workers a chance to earn paid sick days. This is a step in the right direction, but we continue to advocate for a bill that will give ALL workers the dignity to earn paid sick days.