Contact: Max Rosenblum or Tyler Dratch
202.387.2800 | news@rac.org
Washington, D.C., September 8, 2015 – In response to President Obama’s Executive Order establishing a national paid sick days standard for federal contractors, Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, issued the following statement:
We welcome President Obama’s Executive Order which will require federal contractors to provide employees with paid sick leave. The new policy will impact more than 300,000 employees, allowing them to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave each year. This Executive Order ensures that workers will be able to do their jobs effectively without worrying about being penalized for getting sick, for accessing preventative care or for helping a family member recover from illness.
Providing paid sick leave to employees strengthens not just the worker, but entire workplaces and the community at large. It ensures that those who are sick do not make colleagues or those they serve ill. Paid sick days are especially important for women, who are both over-represented in low-wage jobs (that often do not provide such leave) and are most likely to act as the family’s primary caregiver. Further, workers who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking will be able to use this time to recover and seek desperately needed assistance. This executive order is an important step toward ensuring every worker in the United States has access to job-protected sick leave.
As we stand on the threshold of a new year in the Jewish calendar, we pray that it will be one when all workers are able to care for their health and the health of those they love. Our Jewish tradition tells us that “one who withholds an employee’s wages is as though he deprived him of his life” (Bava Metzia 112a). No one wants or plans for illness, but paid sick days ensure that both employees and employers are protected when these unexpected events occur.
We call on Congress to follow the President’s example and act swiftly to pass the Healthy Families Act, H.R. 1286/S. 631, which will expand paid sick days to over 40 million American workers.
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The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is the Washington office of the Union for Reform Judaism, whose nearly 900 congregations across North America encompass 1.5 million Reform Jews, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, whose membership includes more than 2,000 Reform rabbis. Visit www.rac.org for more.
