Comcast: No Paid Sick Days for Philly Workers

April 3, 2013

The Philadelphia City Council passed a bill last week that would require virtually every employer in the city to provide their workers with paid sick days – earning the enmity of Comcast, a major player in Philly politics.

The company employs about 6,000 workers in the city where it’s based, and already offers paid sick time to workers. Comcast said in a press release that the bill, if signed into law, would create an “unnecessary administrative burden and would disrupt a uniform benefits package that is best in class and that our employees have embraced in its current form.”

But the IBEW’s Steve Smith – who has been working to organize Comcast technicians – countered the company’s assertion, saying employees are often hamstrung when they try to use paid sick time that they’ve accrued. “[Comcast's opposition] doesn't surprise me,” he said:

You would think that Comcast workers, given [the company's] profits, would be treated much better than they actually are, but they are not. They all have a few paid sick days. The problem with the paid sick days is that [workers] are penalized when they take any.

 

They have metrics at work. One of the metrics is being there at work. They will look at how many days you were absent and use it against you. You have [sick days] but are penalized for using them.

 

Read the full story at the Working In These Times blog.