Flu By Night Operation

As Ezra Klein reminds us, since 40% of American workers don't have paid sick leave, this flu season will hit American productivity much harder than in other countries.

"About 40 percent of all private-sector workers do not receive paid sick days," reports the New York Times, "and as a result many of them cannot afford to stay home when they are ill. Even some companies that provide paid sick days have policies that make it difficult to call in sick, like giving demerits each time someone misses a day."

This isn't just inhumane policy. It's stupid policy. We're facing a new strain of flu that most have zero resistance against. Workers who fall ill but nevertheless have to ride the bus in to work and stock shelves and talk to co-workers and ride the bus home aren't just workers having a bad day, or workers at risk of getting really sick. They're contagious. They're spreading the flu to other workers, who will in turn be contagious, even to richer workers who do get sick days.

But America continues to have this do as I say, not as I do policy where managers and professionals get sick days, and lower-income Americans do not...and there's always the unwritten rule that using sick days or vacation days to, well, recuperate or recharge is a cardinal sin in the workplace.

The boiler-room "you can rest when you're dead" mentality in the workplace is literally killing us, and it doesn't make good economic sense either.