Dear L/P/S:

Before you read the post below (an important one), please ponder the following from MA.  Please note the sponsoring party, the state (mostly L/P/S).  Just for once open your eyes as to the damage of your mindset.

Or perhaps you agree and Dear Reader, when greater than 50% do, we are done.

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The notion that paid sick time is a “basic right” of private-sector workers is being drummed into taxpayers’ heads by policy-makers, few of whom — if any — have ever struggled to make a payroll or to keep a business afloat in economic times like these. Well, in any economy really, but that’s another editorial.


The issue resurfaced last week during the annual hearing at the State House on legislation that would require Massachusetts employers large and small to guarantee paid sick time to their employees. A similar effort, backed by Sen. John F. Kerry, is pending on Capitol Hill.

That the legislation has yet to become law may be explained by the fact that the majority of employers already offer paid sick time to full-time workers, and to this point a sufficient number of lawmakers have recognized that imposing another government mandate on businesses when you’re trying to prod them to start hiring again is nonsensical.


But that is insufficient to satisfy those who believe government should determine what employee benefits a private company must offer. That includes many Democratic lawmakers on Beacon Hill and Gov. Deval Patrick’s top labor adviser, Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Joanne Goldstein, who before taking the post worked as a union lawyer. It also includes the cities of San Francisco (naturally) and Washington, D.C. and the state of Connecticut — the first state in the nation to mandate paid sick leave.


Talk to people who have run businesses, though, as the Associated Industries of Massachusetts and other Bay State business groups have, and you’ll find folks eager to offer the most generous benefits possible — including paid time off for employees who get sick — but not always able to afford them.


Meanwhile employers won’t suddenly find the resources in the couch cushions to fund this new employee benefit. Man-dating paid sick leave is sure to hold down salaries and cut into other job perks. And just like raising taxes when the national unemployment rate is at 9.2 percent, imposing a costly new mandate on employers, no matter how well-intentioned, is a job-killer.