As new infections increase again with many happening at workplaces, the Greens say there is new urgency to give every worker 14 days COVID sick leave, especially for the millions of Australians without any sick leave at all.
\nThe ACTU has backed national sick leave, the Greens have a bill before parliament for 14 days\u2019 COVID sick leave and the Greens will raise the issue at the COVID Senate committee hearings tomorrow.
\n\u201cUnfortunately, we\u2019re seeing that this pandemic is not conquered yet. Making sure workers can take sick leave when they need to is an important public safety measure,\u201d Greens Leader, Adam Bandt said.
\n\u201c3.3 million Australians are without sick leave. In addition to being a terrible situation for those individuals and their families, it\u2019s a public health risk and makes it harder to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
\n\u201cWorking people need to know that they\u2019ll be supported if they self-isolate. We shouldn\u2019t have people facing the choice between having no income or risking their and the community\u2019s health.
\n\u201cThe government should step in and help employers meet the cost. This modest but vital provision could be easily funded with a sliver of the $60 billion dollar overestimate for JobKeeper.
\n\u201cSome states are assisting workers, but there remains no provision for the rest of the country.
\n\u201cThe Greens believe that all workers should have sick leave during the crisis,\u201d Bandt said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As new infections increase again with many happening at workplaces, the Greens say there is new urgency to give every worker 14 days COVID sick leave, especially for the millions of Australians without any sick leave at all. The ACTU has backed national sick leave, the Greens have a bill before parliament for 14 days\u2019 … Continue reading “National sick leave vital as COVID containment remains precarious: Bandt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}