Paid sick leave is a winning issue.

• Author: Bravo, Ellen
• Position: Viewpoint essay

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TRUE OR FALSE: THE UNITED States has no sick leave policy to deal with routine illness. Actually, it is false. The United States has a sick leave policy: Everybody has the right to stay home if you're sick. You just don't have the right to get paid or to keep your job. Often our nation's leave policy boils down to this: If you leave, don't come back.

This lack of paid sick days has dire consequences for people's lives.

I've been thinking about Torrie in Milwaukee and Tiffany in Philadelphia. Both of them lost their jobs because one had a child with a mental illness and another had a child with a physical illness. When their schools called and said, "We need you to come and pick up your child," and they did, their bosses fired them.

I've been thinking about a woman I met who had her jaw wired after her boyfriend beat her up. All she needed was a few days to learn how to drink out of a straw and get a restraining order so her boyfriend couldn't do it again. Instead of giving her support, her boss gave her a pink slip.

And I've been thinking about Dana, whose father was sick, and the company said, "Sorry, you don't get to use the time you've earned to care for your father."

The need for paid sick leave couldn't be greater. Forty-four million workers in this country lack even one paid sick day; millions more can't use their own sick time to care for an ill family member, or they receive demerits whenever they take off. The numbers soar among particular groups: 80 percent of the people who serve our food lack paid sick leave, as do 60 percent of the people who care for our kids and elders.

The result? Huge numbers of people--disproportionately female and nonwhite--are going to work sick because they can't afford to lose a paycheck or jeopardize a job.

That's a public health risk for all of us.

Opponents of paid sick days say it kills jobs. But it's the lack of paid leave that kills jobs, and steals incomes, and harms families.

That's why we're fighting so hard to win it--and why we're winning.

Just this year, legislative bodies in Connecticut (the first state to pass such a law), Philadelphia, and Seattle joined San Francisco and the District of Columbia in approving paid sick days legislation.

The mayor in Philly did veto the bill, but a veto-proof majority then passed a measure that applies to companies covered by the city's living wage law. The coalition plans to bring a comprehensive bill after new council members are...