Representatives Lois Capps, Chair and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Vice-Chair of the Democratic Women’s Working Group will join the National Partnership for Women & Families and the National Council of Women’s Organizations in sponsoring a briefing on paid sick days next Tuesday.  Today in the United States, 48 percent of private-sector workers and 79 percent of low-wage workers have no paid sick days.  The briefing will be at:

4:30 PM, Tuesday, July 17
U.S. Capitol, Room HC-6
Featuring:
 
Rachna Choudhry, National Partnership for Women & Families
Linda Meric, 9to5
Vicky Lovell, PhD, Employment and Work/Life Programs, Institute for Women’s Policy Research
Thomas Shellabarger, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Sonya Mehta, Co-Director, Young Workers United, San Francisco
Greg Asay, San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (OLSE)
Karen Minatelli, DC Employment Justice Center
Jen Kern, Living Wage Resource Center, ACORN

In March, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Representative Rosa L. DeLauro introduced the Healthy Families Act, to give paid sick days to millions of workers so they no longer have to choose between a paycheck and recovery when they get sick or a family member needs care.  The bill would require employers with 15 or more employees to provide seven paid sick days to address an employee’s short-term medical needs or those of his or her family. 

San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved the country’s first paid sick days ordinance last November.  Since January of 2007, paid sick day bills have been introduced in legislatures in Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina and Vermont, and before the D.C. City Council.

Tuesday’s briefing is open to media