Advocates call for paid sick leave in Duluth
Nearly half of the workers in Duluth never get a paid sick day.
Debra Smith’s job at a temp agency supplied her with full-time work at up to $12 an hour, but no benefits. If she got sick, or if she needed to stay home to care for her daughter, who has asthma, it came out of her paycheck.
“I couldn’t take time off work — or felt that if I did, I would be paid less,” Smith said Monday at a news conference organized by Take Action Minnesota, a nonprofit focused on racial and economic equity. “That would affect my ability to pay the rent, or purchase groceries.”
Smith, who now works a job with better benefits, was one of nearly 20,000 Duluth workers who do not get paid sick leave. Roughly 46 percent of the city’s workforce has no paid leave, according to a new survey by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
Duluth is now joining a growing number of Minnesota cities looking to implement paid sick leave regulations for businesses. Minneapolis, where an estimated 42 percent of the workforce lacks paid sick leave, is working on a plan to require businesses with four or more employees to offer that benefit. St. Paul is studying the idea of mandatory sick leave benefits as well.
Researchers studied census and National Institutes of Health data to determine how many Duluth workers had access to paid time off when they were sick. In 2014, a statewide survey found that Duluth and St. Louis County had the lowest rate of sick leave coverage in Minnesota. The 2016 follow-up found that workers with the smallest paychecks were also the least likely to have access to benefits such as sick days.
Part-time workers and employees who earn less than $35,000 a year were least likely to have access to paid time off when they or a family member fall ill. By contrast, almost all employees in the top salary tiers, the ones earning more than $65,000 a year, had paid sick leave.
Four states — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Oregon — require employers to offer sick leave. Twenty-three cities have also instituted their own mandatory requirements.
