TKW Consulting

Paid sick leave is crucial for child care providers
By Ruth Schmidt

Passing the sick leave ordinance would have a positive impact on child care and education programs.The issues inherent in the proposed sick leave ordinance affect child care providers in Dane County in competing and compelling ways.

As small businesses, a majority of child care centers operate with little to no profit margin or as nonprofits with no reserves. In theory, providing paid sick leave to their work force has the potential to further financially stress a system already woefully underfinanced. Yet we know that most child care centers in Madison already do provide this benefit. Why? Because the early childhood community understands that adequate paid sick leave is critical to sustaining the public health of our city, which in turn sustains families, children and those who care for them.

Child care providers see the personal face of this issue, and they see it more often than is acceptable in this city today. They see the face of a worried parent bringing a sick child to care, hoping they will not be turned away, forced to choose between staying home to care for their child and losing a day's wages, perhaps a job, because of absence. They know the personal struggle of a low-income mother or father who cannot make the best choice for a sick child because of economic constraints imposed by a business climate that disproportionately disadvantages the low-wage work force.

Family child care providers and centers alike know this all-too-familiar scenario. More than any other sector, it is perhaps the people who provide child care and education and the children themselves who are affected by employers' decisions not to provide paid sick leave.What are the ramifications to the child care work force when one analyzes this issue from a public health perspective? It is helpful to peel away layers of factors that complicate this issue.

First, we know that children in early childhood programs are often sick. Illnesses such as colds, flu, pink eye and diarrhea are some of the most common brought into child care centers, family child care homes and preschools. Not only does this expose other children (most with still-developing immune systems) to these illnesses, it exposes every child care worker.

Second, we know that individuals in the child care work force in Wisconsin are less than half as likely to receive employer-provided health insurance benefits compared to the general Wisconsin work force 24 percent vs. 67.7 percent.

The result is that workers who are frequently exposed to illnesses lack adequate health insurance to get medical attention when they are ill. It is documented that uninsured individuals receive fewer preventive services, less care for chronic illnesses and poorer hospital-based care. The stark reality is that uninsured adults tend to be sicker and at higher risk of premature death: 25 percent higher mortality rate at age 65 than insured
adults.

Add to these factors the fact that the child care work force in Wisconsin earns only 64 percent as much as the state work force as a whole (the median hourly wage for a child care worker in Wisconsin in 2001 was $8.31), and you can begin to understand the crisis that early care and education professionals face routinely in performing their jobs.

Passing the sick leave ordinance would have a positive impact on child care and education programs. Sick children would not need to attend child care or school, making it less likely that other children or staff would get sick. This could reduce the spread of illnesses in the city and could actually reduce the need for child care staff to take sick leave.

Child care programs that do not currently offer paid sick leave to their staff will incur costs to implement such a policy, a cost that is likely to be passed on to parents. This is a justifiable trade-off to protect the health of individuals in our community.

When did it become acceptable to expect child care workers to sacrifice wages, health benefits and a healthy workplace to care for our children, even our sick children? Child care workers have historically shouldered this burden, and as an industry we have struggled to calculate the cost of this sacrifice.

Paid sick leave does cost money. No one disagrees with this. But it makes so much sense for the sake of children, working parents, child care providers, centers and schools trying to provide loving, healthy, safe environments. Therefore, the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association supports the proposed sick leave ordinance.

Ruth Schmidt is executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.Published: May 12, 2006