family leave

A Hole In The Massachusetts Earned Sick Time Law

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Cup of tea with lemon for sick day

Being a leap year, there’s an extra day standing between us and spring. So, us New Englanders have to tough out winter even longer. February is the worst of the season and we’re still at the beginning. The cold temperatures usually mean that more of us are sick. CBS News recently reported that because the country has close to full employment, the places where we work have an increase in people, so the flu spreads even easier.

Whether it’s a cold, the flu or some other bug, there’s probably a lot of coughing, sneezing and sniffling where you work. Everyone says if you’re sick, don’t go in. Take a day or two off to rest and get better.

But that’s often easier said than done. Especially so soon after the holidays. Money spent on gifts may have left some in a fragile financial state and the holidays themselves may have been unpaid — further exacerbating the situation. Not all workers have paid holidays.

The time frame from the end of November through mid-January (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) often comes with several smaller weekly paychecks due to all the holidays. So taking unpaid time off at this time of year because of illness may not be an option. If anything, some workers may be trying to work extra time to make up for the money lost.

The Massachusetts Earned Sick Time Law is presumably meant to address most workers, but its focus is on permanent employees within larger companies – 11 employees or more. This law may seem fair on its face, but it’s not always fair in its application. Even though I had been working full time, one year, I ended up not having sick time available to use even though I earned it. Contract workers aren’t able to use sick leave in the same way (or sometimes at all) as permanent workers.

Contract vs Permanent

The term contract employee is used interchangeably with temporary employee. Both terms mean that the employee is hired via a contract for a particular job at a set rate of pay. This worker does not become part of the staff where they work and is not a permanent employee.

According to the American Staffing Association, about 17 million temporary and contract employees are hired each year in the United States by staffing companies. Most work full-time and enjoy having a flexible schedule. The average assignment is around two and a half months and can range from a few hours to several years.

Staffing statistics specific to Massachusetts give some insight as well. Annual sales are $4.3 billion. Each week, 68,100 temporary employees are part of the workforce in this state. Annually, that’s 354,200 people doing contract work in Massachusetts.

47% of these workers are in the engineering, IT and scientific sector. 15% are doing industrial work and another 15% are doing clerical and administrative work in an office. 7% are doing professional or managerial work. 12% are part of an uncategorized sector and 4% work in health care.

I’ve been a full-time contract attorney for many years, working at mostly large law firms in the Boston area. I’ve worked on dozens of projects. They have been as short as one day to as long as nearly four years. But as the previously stated statistics say, most recently, my projects have generally been two to three months.

To keep working steadily, I’m signed up with multiple agencies. Depending upon how long a project lasts, I might work for one agency for a year or more. Or I may work for several agencies for a few weeks and then for a few months. Most of these agencies I have worked with over many years. Each project may be new, but I am not a new employee. There is a work history.

The Problem: Using Massachusetts Sick Time

Earned sick time in Massachusetts provides that workers can earn and use up to 40 hours of sick time per year. Workers earn an hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Employers can have their own policies providing more generous leave options than required by law.

Earning sick time isn’t the problem. The problem is using sick time that has already been earned. The regulations give some clarity. Sick time can’t be used until 90 days after the first date of actual work. Also, after a 12 month break in service, the 90-day vesting period starts again.

When a contractor is working on a project on average for about 75 days and works for multiple agencies, they may not return to the same agency for another year or more. In this scenario, the sick time that they earned is probably lost by the time they return to that employer.

This happened to me. It hasn’t happened often, but I went about one year where I couldn’t use the sick time that I had earned. By the next year, I had lost most if not all of it and had to start the 90 days again. This has also happened to colleagues. If this is happening to us, it might be happening to contractors in different sectors of the workforce as well.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, “approximately 728,000 private sector workers gained access to earned sick time under the law; of those, 431,000 workers lacked paid leave benefits of any kind (including vacation) and are newly eligible to receive leave under the law.”

The Solution: Amend The Law

I’m one of those workers who for the most part didn’t have paid leave benefits before this 2015 law. I’m grateful for it. But hindsight is 2020 and so is the year. Since we’ve had five years to see how this law works, I believe it’s time to take a closer look and amend the law, so it works for more of us.

However, there is another issue. Does anyone care? I’m attuned to the gaps in the law because I have firsthand experience. I was talking to a friend at work about this and she said that nobody cares how it impacts us. It felt quite hurtful, but maybe it’s true.

I plan to contact my state legislators about an amendment — and it may come to nothing. But at least I wrote this and raised the issue. Much like when I wrote about the gap in the Family Medical Leave Act when it comes to siblings. I want others in similar situations to know that they are not alone. It’s happening to other people as well. And even though it may not be most people, someone else does care.

On Family: Boston, Politics, Love & Donuts

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Kane's Donuts window BostonLast week I was stalking Kane’s Donuts. If you follow me on Instagram, it was quite easy to see.

Years ago, my cousin had told me about how good these donuts were and I never forgot.

When I heard they were opening in Boston last week, in the building where I was working in no less, I decided to seek them out.

My project ended the same day they opened. But I got a dozen donuts so I could try them myself and share as well. Their slogan is “Donuts are love.” Remember this.

Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now. ~ Fred Rogers

Also last week, I learned that my father has Alzheimer’s. donuts thru glassAs an NBC News article says, it’s hard to get a diagnosis for Alzheimer’s.

More than half a million Americans will develop Alzheimer’s disease this year, but as many as half will never be told their diagnosis, according to a new report.

Doctors are reluctant to give the bad news, are afraid of the reaction, or fear they won’t be believed, the Alzheimer’s Association says. But Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers say they want to know.

I’ve written about my father on my blog many times before. I perfected my chocolate birthday cake for his 79th birthday.  He and I did a tour of a rum distillery. I blogged his story of when he met Jalen Rose’s father Jimmy Walker on the basketball court back in the day. My Dad has so many stories. I’m so lucky to be his daughter.

I’ve been conflicted about whether to write about what my family is going through. I’m still not sure if it’s the right thing to do. I hope this isn’t a mistake. But for me, “writing it out” is therapeutic. My father has been so supportive of my writing and creative life. Even more so over the past couple of years.

My father is in denial and says nothing is wrong. Over the past five months, so many things have gone wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. My mother and I could not ignore them any longer. Safety becomes an issue and denial is not an option. But it all happened so fast. One thing after another. We were not prepared. It is so hard. My heart is breaking.

My father will turn 83 soon. He played basketball twice a week until he was 79 years old. He was and in some ways still is the picture of health. He injured his shoulder and had to stop playing basketball. That changed everything.

This — Alzheimer’s, was not supposed to happen to him. Not to my father. He recites poetry from memory and has a story for every occasion. My father is special. This happens to other people. But each of us is “other people” to everyone else. Everyone is special.

The details of all that happened are personal and don’t really matter for the big picture. For everyone who develops Alzheimer’s, I imagine there will be similarities, but the exact details will be different. I’m trying to learn more about this disease, but it’s a steep learning curve and I know that to a certain extent I must still be in shock.

I’ve been a fan of B. Smith for a long time. When I learned that she had early onset Alzheimer’s I was stunned.

Strangely enough, when Smith went missing in November, it was around the time that things started happening with my father. She is becoming more public with her diagnosis and speaking out about Alzheimer’s. I had no idea that it was such a big issue for African Americans. There needs to be more diversity in clinical trials, according to a BusinessWire article.

Although older African Americans are twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s disease as non-Hispanic whites, diagnosis and treatment are more likely to be delayed. In addition, Applied Clinical Trials reports African American participation in clinical trials of potential Alzheimer’s disease treatments has declined to only two percent. Despite an increasingly ethnically diverse US population, African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities are under-represented in medical research. As a study published in Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders found, over 95 percent of subjects in a typical Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial are white.

It seems that the only way to deal with a big societal problem is for the people who are dealing with it to go public. Today I saw Angelina Jolie’s piece in the New York Times about her latest surgery and all the health issues and decisions she continues to go through. She is so brave and I admire her for it. I decided to follow in her footsteps and write here today.

As I’ve been helping my parents over the last several months, I’ve had to take time from work. The article that I wrote for The Atlantic about the Family and Medical Leave Act back in November has been on my mind and especially today. One of the issues is that most family leave is unpaid.

Today I read that Boston may soon have an ordinance for eligible city employees to receive paid parental leave. What a huge and wonderful first step!

But when I think of paid family leave, it should not only be for parents. Not everyone is a parent. I don’t have children, but I still have a family. The work I’ve missed was unpaid and I needed the money. But priorities. I do contract work and this type of legislation never helps those in my work situation. We are not “true employees” receiving benefits.

However, I hope that those otherwise eligible Boston city workers who take time off to help family can be paid regardless of parental status. Should an adult child’s time spent helping an elderly parent be deemed less important than the time parents spend bonding with their newborn? Aren’t they just opposite sides of the same coin?

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Maybe my writing this piece will help someone who is seeing signs in a parent or other loved one, but is unsure about what is happening and about what to do. I don’t have all or even most of the answers, but there is help. Me and my mother have been reaching out to family and friends, different organizations, doctors, nurses, social workers, and more. You name it. Keep reaching out and asking questions. Push for answers. Stay as organized as you can. Take time for yourself. Push for more answers. Appreciate the small victories.

honey dipped + plain donutsMy father has a sweet tooth. When I visited him last week, I brought him some of these donuts. I have never seen his face light up with such pure joy than at the sight of them. Maybe donuts are love.