The Grassroots Organizers' Perfect Storm - The Fight For Paid Sick Leave

Grassroots groups stir the pot of human understanding. They fuel the awareness about why forty percent or more of hourly workers nationally are left outside the door of paid sick leave. Social change cannot occur without the inclusion of the disempowered workers who people the realms of the disposable employees are who are cast aside when illness overcomes the will to work.

Collectively, we as a society are no more powerful than the weakest among us. Some studies show that more than sixty percent of Americans workers receive paid sick leave. These of course are the workers who people the union roles or the ranks of the salaried employees. The forty percent or more in the ranks of the unpaid sick days remain dependent on grassroots advocacy groups such as 9-5 Women, Acorn, Citizen's Project, and Youth United for Work, JwJ as well as numerous other in the trenches organizations across the United States.

This state by state organizing is interminably slow with paid medical leave advances most prominently displayed in San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Washington D.C. In the case of Youth United in San Francisco, California, does regional culture influence the paid sick leave legislation which occurred? This legislative change is born in a state with a historic tendency to support paid leave for its workers. On a national state ranking system, California is among the most highly ranked and graded at B with no state earning an A. The ranking results from the quantity of paid leave allocated to workers. States such as Colorado rank at the C/D level due to the dearth of medical leave policy to democratize paid sick leave. Now, the city by city approach to change is moving to a country-wide effort to support the health initiative lead by Senator Kennedy.

Organizations are on board to promote social change legislation for paid sick leave. One such organization whose national office is in Denver, Colorado is 9-5 Women which is part of a broad national network pushing for country-wide paid sick leave relief. Value Families at Work includes this description of 9-5's effort at broad-based reform.

In Colorado, 9 to 5 has built a work-family coalition that is engaged in grassroots organizing, media outreach, and building support for public education and state policy efforts to provide time off work to parents to attend children's school activities; and to guarantee workers paid sick days. The coalition also works to bring Colorado voices into national efforts to protect and expand FMLA, win paid sick days, and to include work-family issues in local community benefits campaigns. Colorado is powerfully positioned in view of its recent victory over the Ward Connerly funded initiative to undermine civil rights.

Acorn is another imminent grassroots organizer. Acorn boasts an extensive national network infrastructure.
With a posted membership of 400,000; the organization identifies 116 chapters through out the United States. The Wall Street Journal included this information about the work of Acorn.

Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.

With grass roots leaders at work, opponents of paid sick leave may have their hands more than full. The controversial effort continues.

Delia Armstrong Busby is an award winning educator and former school board member. Contact at rubusy1@comcast.net