No Paid Sick Leave Toughens Swine Flu Battle in US

Along with scarce vaccine and shrinking stocks of antivirals, the United States faces another enemy in the fight against swine flu: workers who go to work when they're ill because they don't get paid sick leave.

The A(H1N1) virus "is causing an emergency for workers and families across the country," Democratic Senator Chris Dodd told a Senate subcommittee hearing Tuesday on paid sick leave in a time of pandemic flu.

The United States is one of only five countries in the world without a national policy on paid sick leave, Dodd said.

"We're in the company - and I say this respectfully of these countries - of Lesotho, Liberia, Papua-New Guinea and Swaziland. Those countries and the United States are the five that don't have paid sick leave," Dodd said.

"Five nations, four of whom are struggling economies, barely surviving as nation-states, and the richest country in the world," he told a hearing in the Senate health, education, labor and pensions subcommittee.

Many of the 57 million US private sector workers who don't get paid if they take a day off because of illness are in low-paid jobs such as catering or the hotel industry. Related article: Bill Clinton spurs US Senate on Health care bill

For them, contracting the swine flu "means you have a choice: either go into work sick and risk infecting your co-workers or stay home and lose a day's pay," Dodd said.