This winter's devastating flu outbreak confirms a sobering truth: Washing your hands and trying not to inhale is little protection when the worker peeling potatoes next to you or typing in the next cubicle has a fever of 103 degrees and is spreading germs far and wide.
One in four workers in the state has been fired or threatened with job loss for taking sick days, according to the progressive think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective.
That means the average employee is likely to haul his aching, sneezing, coughing body out of bed and into the workplace - even against his better judgment.
Two high-ranking state lawmakers believe workers should not have to choose between caring for their health or putting food on the table, and now they're proposing to do something about it.
Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Dumont) and Assembly Deputy Speaker Pamela Lampitt (D-Camden) are backing a measure designed to allow employees to accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, earning between 40 and 72 hours of sick leave depending on the size of their company.
This is not a new concept in the Garden State. A dozen or so municipalities here have already adopted such policies, including Trenton, Jersey City, Newark, New Brunswick and Paterson.
But now even business leaders who traditionally have argued against these laws says they would prefer a comprehensive approach rather than the current piecemeal arrangement that makes bookkeeping and administration a nightmare.
While the previous administration was terminally opposed to the notion of earned sick leave, Phil Murphy made it an important part of his campaign for governor, and has held several events to focus a spotlight on the issue since his inauguration.
From a public-health standpoint, freeing employees to care for themselves or their ailing children makes enormous sense. Workers not covered by such policies are far more likely to share their contagion with colleagues, customers and anyone else with whom they come into contact during the work day.
During the H1N1 flu epidemic several years ago, an estimated 7 million people are thought to have caught the virus from workers who showed up for duty, despite hacking coughs and phlegm-filled sneezes.
"Montclair is proof that earned sick days keeps our families communities and local economies healthy," says Mayor Robert Jackson, whose town signed on to an earned sick-leave ordinance in 2015.
Weinberg's concept is still a work in progress, she says, as legislators work out such matters as whether businesses with just a few employees would be exempt, and how a new policy would co-exist with local ordinances.
As they go about their deliberations, the lawmakers would be wise to consider the needs of business owners and health-care providers, making sure everyone has a voice in shaping what could be a humane new approach for workers who call New Jersey their home.
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