Erin Zygaitis is a floral manager at Rhythm & Blooms flower shop in Eugene, which recently began offering paid sick time. Before that, Erin says, "it was difficult. I got pretty sick a year and a half ago and I had bronchitis, but I couldn't really afford to take the time off to get better and I had it for about three and a half or four months."
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Collin O'Coyne has been a manager at Cornucopia Restaurant in Eugene for 2 years. He is one of four out of 45 employees who gets one week of paid time off per year. He estimates the restaurant would have to raise its prices about $2 per plate in order to offer paid sick time to all of its employees.
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Philip Carrasco and his wife Jessica Allphin both have part-time jobs and this past winter, they didn't have paid sick time. "It really is a major stressor for a family," he says. "We have a six-year-old and a 15-month-old and if one got sick, then it made the rounds...Sometimes we would still go to work despite being sick." Philip's employer, Catholic Community Services, recently announced that employees will get paid sick time starting this summer. Philip also works as a community organizer for Oregon AFL-CIO.
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Mike Nesbitt is the president of Papa's Pizza Parlor, which has several locations across Oregon. He is "100 percent behind" paid sick time for full-time workers, but he says it's different for part-time workers. "We offer a lot of part-time work to a lot of people and those part-time workers have the opportunity to make up the time that they miss if they are sick."
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Sabrina Parsons is the CEO of Palo Alto Software in Eugene. She offers all 55 of her employees paid time off. "I think this is one of those debates that sometime in the future, we're all going to wonder why it was a debate, like child labor laws, " she says. "I think in the long run, [paid sick time] is going to be better for business and it's clearly better for the people who work at businesses."
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Dennis Morgan is the vice president of research for Renewable Resource Group. "I would prefer a statewide paid time off policy to a sick leave policy," he says. "If someone is sick, we don't want them coming in, but if somebody wants to go do something else, we don't want them telling us they're sick."
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Shad Turner is the president of Lawrence Air Service, which handles charter planes for the many sports teams flying in and out of Eugene. He has 19 employees, five of which are full-time, and he hires more people during football season when his business gets busy. "I do think that seasonal workers should be exempt from these kinds of programs," he says of paid sick leave.
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Treva Gambs is the owner of Gamberetti’s Italian restaurant in Salem. She doesn't think paid sick time is a good idea for her business. "In the restaurant industry, [workers] switch shifts because if they lose a shift, they lose tips. So, it's not just the hourly wage that they're concerned about."
Julie Sabatier / OPB
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Portland has a paid sick leave policy, and Eugene passed a local law last year that's set to go into effect in July. Both inspired contentious debate over how businesses and workers would be impacted. That same debate has been going on in Salem as lawmakers discuss the possibility of a statewide policy on paid sick leave. If that happens, it will preempt the Eugene ordinance, which puts employers in that city in a bit of an awkward position. The Eugene City Council passed a mandatory paid sick leave ordinance that would apply to all businesses, even those with only one employee. The statewide policy would likely apply to businesses with ten or more employees.
Mike Nesbitt, president of Papa's Pizza Parlor
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Mike Nesbitt is the president of Papa’s Pizza Parlor, which has several locations around Oregon. He says it's important to make a distinction between full-time and part-time workers.
"The case can absolutely be made that if somebody is working full time at my pizza parlor, 40 hours a week, they will suffer if they have to miss a day of work, and so something needs to be done for them," he says.
But part-time workers often have the opportunity to trade shifts at Papa's, which Nesbitt says makes paid sick time unnecessary for those employees.
"If they miss time because they're sick and want to make up that time, they have ample opportunity to do that."
Rep. Paul Holvey (D-Eugene) points out that shift trading would still be an option under the proposed statewide policy.
"If the employer and employee both agree to it, we certainly do allow that without the use of paid sick time," he said.
Holvey says he wouldn't want to craft a policy that didn't include part-time workers.
"We don’t want to see employers employing all part-time employees in order to stay out of compliance with this new legislation," he explained.
Philip Carrasco and Jessica Allphin
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Philip Carrasco and his wife, Jessica Allphin, both have part-time jobs and neither of them had the option of taking paid sick time this past winter when their kids got sick.
"It really is a major stressor for a family," Carrasco says. "We have a six-year-old and a 15-month-old and if one got sick, then it made the rounds...Sometimes we would still go to work despite being sick."
In addition to working with Oregon AFL-CIO, Carrasco is the Young Fathers Program Coordinator at Catholic Community Services of Lane County, which recently announced that employees will get paid sick time starting this summer.
Some employers would prefer to offer the more flexible option of paid time off, which could be used for sick days, vacation, or any reason an employee wanted to take time off. Sabrina Parsons is the CEO of Palo Alto Software in Eugene and she offers all 55 of her employees at least 3 weeks of paid time off.
"I feel like an employee should be able to decide how they want to use their time and it should have nothing to do with me," says Parsons.
Parsons supports a statewide paid sick time policy. She explains, "I think something more flexible is absolutely better, but at this point anything is better than nothing."
Dennis Morgan, vice president of research for the Renewable Resource Group
Julie Sabatier / OPB
Dennis Morgan disagrees. He's the he vice president of research for Renewable Resource Group, which does water and environmental testing for Lane County. He is concerned that if he's forced to offer his employees paid time off rather than paid sick leave, that will give them an incentive to lie about why they're taking time away from work.
"If someone wants to go do something else, we don't want them telling us they're sick," he says. "We'd rather have them take the paid time off that they've accrued rather than lie to us."
Rep. Andy Olson (R-Albany) shares Morgan's concern. He says a mandated paid sick leave policy could hurt the relationship between employers and employees.
"Let’s face it, in every profession, every position that you consider, you’re going to have bad apples," he said. "The abuse of this is going to occur."
Holvey says there are ways to guard against employees misusing paid sick leave.
"If an employer suspects that an employee is abusing this, they have the right to ask for medical verification," he said.
Erin Zygaitis works at Rhythm & Blooms flower shop in Eugene.
Julie Sabatier / OPB
"As a person who works for an hourly wage, particularly people who don't make a lot per hour, it is very difficult to decide to stay home and take care of yourself rather than go and work," says Erin Zygaitis who works as a floral manager at Rhythm & Blooms flower shop in Eugene.
Lawmakers are still negotiating a statewide sick leave policy, trying to balance the needs of workers with the concerns of employers.