Issue 4

As a nurse, and until recently, a single mother, I am in favor for the most part of employees staying home when they are sick, and even having the ability to take care of a sick child, I am wondering if this legislation leaves too many loopholes. As I hear too often, people are always there to complain about those who "take advantage of the system". Well, that is in any case.



However, here, whether or not this is passed, it has opened an opportunity for the businesses to take advantage of their employees. My company, as well as many others in my area, have all decided to take a proactive approach, and lump all our leave into one bank (sick, vacation and PTO). While doing it, they are going to decrease the accrual rate of my vacation. Basically what this has accomplished is this:


Say I accrue 3 days sick time and 10 days vacation time a year, with 2 personal days off. As of October, I now have a bank that accrues a total of 15 days off. (And if this is passed, 7 of those 15 days will HAVE to go towards sick time, leaving me with only 8 to use as vacation.) The other thing it accomplishes, is that my company, by acting proactively, is not held accountable for decreasing my vacation days. Without more tweaking of this bill, I cannot be a supporter. However, I fully understand the fault lies in my employer's hands, which no matter what happens, screwed me out of 4 vacation days per year, from here on out.


Other than that, companies that haven't yet established themselves in Ohio will have one more reason not to. We already rank something like 48 out of 50 in the nation for the creation of new jobs. Those that are established will (and already are) changing their policies to mirror more of the above. While I am not against encouraging healthy employees, I only hope that we can all vote "no" on this issue. At the very least, it needs rewritten.



**Update: Now that the issue is off the ballot (thank me for emailing both representatives and the governor, lol) my employers have changed their minds about their great new plan, and have moved further discussion to 2009. I'm not stupid. Come on.