Testimony: Coronvavirus and Paid Sick Days Awareness
Nancy Rankin
Testimony by Nancy Rankin, CSS VP for Policy, Research, and Avocacy
Re: Oversight Hearing on New York City’s Preparations
For Coronavirus/COVID-19
Committee on Health and Committee on Hospitals
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on New York City’s preparations for Coronavirus.
My name is Nancy Rankin. I am Vice President for Policy Research and Advocacy at the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), a nonprofit organization that works to advance upward mobility for low-income New Yorkers. CSS has been a strong advocate for expanding health insurance to cover all New Yorkers and through our navigator and consumer assistance programs making sure that insurance meets their needs. We wish to commend Speaker Johnson and Council Member Mark Levine for their support of both the Access Health NYC and MCCAP programs, which support community-based organizations helping New Yorkers find and use health coverage or otherwise access care.
As we prepare for coronavirus, ensuring people have health coverage is obviously important. But having a Medicaid or insurance card in your hand is not enough; workers also need to be able to take paid sick leave. We thank Council Member Levine for introducing Intro. 1797, a bill that would create an ongoing informational campaign to raise awareness of workers’ rights under New York City’s earned safe and sick time act.
One of the main recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for preventing the spread of the coronavirus—and of seasonal flu—is to stay home from work if you are sick. Fortunately, most employees in New York City have the right to paid sick days thanks to the law originally passed by the City Council in 2013 and expanded twice since then by the Council and Mayor de Blasio. In addition, New York City’s law explicitly includes a provision that allows paid sick time to be used if a person’s place of business, child’s school or day care is closed due to a public health emergency. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that too many low-income workers are unaware of their rights. CSS’s 2019 survey of New York City residents, conducted with the professional polling firm Lake Research, found that 60 percent of low-income workers covered by the law had heard little about it; including 42 percent who had heard nothing at all. Lack of awareness hinders enforcement since it is driven largely by worker complaints.
Council Member Levine’s bill, introduced at the request of Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who was the lead sponsor of the original paid sick leave legislation, aims to rectify this. The legislation would provide for the distribution of posters and other educational materials, informing the public about their right to sick leave, that would be voluntarily displayed at pharmacies, and at hospitals and other health care locations throughout the city.
This is a simple, very low-cost, effective and timely way to raise awareness of the right to paid sick leave. It would reach people when they need the information. And widespread posters would also raise awareness among employers and the general public, making it harder for the most vulnerable workers to be denied their rights.
With the measles outbreak just behind us, the flu season still underway, and new health threats ahead of us, the urgency of ensuring that employees are aware of their rights to paid sick leave could not be greater.
We thank Council Member Levine for introducing this important legislation which already has 25 sponsors, including Hospitals Committee Chair Carlina Rivera and urge all the members of the Health Committee and the Hospitals Committee to join in supporting this bill.