As workplace rights go, paid sick days are about as rudimentary as it gets. Since no one plans to fall ill, it follows that no one deserves to lose pay over a few missed shifts. For this very reason, they are already a legal right in many jurisdictions, and employers are expected to bear the cost. The case for guaranteed paid sick days has only grown stronger in the era of COVID-19, which has routinely forced many workers to choose between losing a paycheck and putting their lives at risk.

For Canada’s only social democratic government, the British Columbia NDP, the policy should be a no-brainer. Pandemic-era sickness benefits offered by the federal Liberals, for one thing, are far from adequate, and nearly 90 percent of workers earning less than $30,000 a year currently have no sick days to speak of. As the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Alex Hemingway rightly points out, the vast majority of those workers are employed by large corporations rather than the small, family-run businesses who so often feature in business lobby agitprop.

To its credit, the government has introduced a number of solidly pro-worker measures since it took office — among them a minimum-wage increase, new laws to combat wage theft, and changes to the province’s labor code that have been welcomed by unions. In response to the pandemic, it legislated job protections for those forced to miss work because of COVID and provided for up to three unpaid days of leave due to injury or sickness. As the case of one Vancouver poultry plant shows, however, these measures are completely inadequate: following an outbreak at the city’s United Poultry facility, some workers experiencing symptoms and concerned about lost pay continued to report for their shifts. Pandemic or not, workers without the option of staying home in the event of illness lack a very basic workplace protection — and risk imperiling public health at large by going into work.