39 percent of private sector employees in the United States don’t have a single paid sick day to recover from illness. These aspiring middle-class workers must choose between losing a paycheck or coming in to work sick, endangering their own health and the public. The prevalence and danger of the H1N1 pandemic makes working while sick particularly dangerous to the afflicted, her coworkers, and clients or customers. Despite government recommendations that workers showing signs of the flu remain home from work, many employees cannot afford to do so even when their employers recommend it because they are not paid for days they miss while sick. The Emergency Influenza Containment Act would remedy this situation by guaranteeing 5 paid sick days per year to an employee who has been directed by his or her employer to leave work or to stay home from work because of an illness. The employee’s paid sick leave ends when the employer believes the employee is no longer ill. Because the legislation is targeted at stemming the spread of the H1N1 pandemic, its provisions expire after two years.

Critics point out that the Emergency Influenza Containment Act does much less to protect workers than the Health Families Act, which requires employers to provide paid sick days regardless of whether the employer has instructed the employee to take time off. The Health Families Act also allows workers to take time off to care for ailing family members.