Encourage Sick Leave In Flu Pandemic, Firms Urged

February 28, 2006
by Maggie Fox
Reuters

Businesses need to plan on having 40 percent of their workforces out if a flu pandemic strikes and need to start rewarding employees for staying home when they are sick, U.S. government advisers told a conference on Tuesday... ...This may be tough, others told the conference. "Half of America's workers have no sick leave," said Jeffrey Levi of the Trust for America's Health. "We are going to ask people to stay home." But if workers face losing pay if they do not show up, they will come out while sick and will spread influenza, Levi said.

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