We're told to stay home if we're ill but many Kiwis simply cannot afford to. Photo / 123rf
We're told to stay home if we're ill but many Kiwis simply cannot afford to. Photo / 123rf
COMMENT:
Raise your hand if you've ever gone to work while you were feeling under the weather because you were either all out of sick leave or felt like it wasn't serious enough to warrant taking a sick day?
Okay, I can't see all the raised hands but I assume there are many and it's not just me. Over the years, I've gone through my fair share of tissues from the work stationery cupboard, fighting colds and all sorts of other bugs, telling myself I was fine, thinking I was being smart about saving up my sick leave for more worthwhile illnesses.
Those days are over.
In the post-Covid world, we know that kind of thing is not appropriate. If we're feeling sick, we're meant to stay home. We know better so we can do better - but we can't do it unless the Government steps in to help make that a reality.
Stats from the first few months of life in the pandemic show that staying home reduced the spread of Covid-19 but also of other contagious illnesses like the flu. We know that, when it comes to viruses, keeping away from others is key to stop the spread.
However, employees - and low-income earners in particular - will struggle to stay home when needed on only five days of paid sick leave a year.
Financial worries will drag us to workplaces all over the country and we will carry our germs with us, because we have bills to pay and can't afford to risk our livelihoods.
We can't risk having people avoiding a Covid-19 test for fears they'll be told to self-isolate and worries over whether they can afford to.
Workers with dependent children will struggle even more. Those children will get sick and the only way to stop the spread will be to keep them home and to have an adult stay home with them.
Kiwi parents have long known that five days of sick leave is not even remotely enough. You end up using them on your kid's bugs and there's none left for when you're under the weather yourself. So you pop some nurofen and get yourself to work, hoping no one tries to make small talk or asks very difficult questions while you struggle to keep your eyes open and daydream of getting back to bed.
If the Government wants us to stay home when we're not well, it needs to give us the means to do so.
A petition seeking better sick leave entitlements was presented to Government earlier this week.
Signed by 10,000 people, the petition seeks changes such as increasing legal minimum paid sick leave from five to 10 days.
Last month, the Government announced that employers will no longer have to show their revenue has dropped by 30 per cent to get staff who have to self-isolate due to Covid-19 testing on to its leave support scheme. The scheme means workers are paid the equivalent of the wage subsidy.
It's a good step but it's not enough.
Learning to live with the threat of Covid-19 will be tricky but we already know some of the things that definitely work. Self-isolation is "word of the day" these days for a reason: because it works.
The Government knows better - it's time to do better.
