WHEREAS: Nearly 28 million people working in the United States have no access to paid sick leave for short-term health needs and preventive care.1 The vast majority of these workers are low wage earners.2 A disproportionate percentage of Latinx and Black workers report having no paid time away from work of any kind.3 The working poor face an impossible choice when they are sick: stay home and risk their economic stability or go to work and risk their health and the public’s health.

Paid sick leave both increases productivity4 and reduces turnover, which in turn reduces costs associated with hiring.5 According to experts, effective policies are available for preventative care, when sick, or to care for a family member who is ill.6 Separate paid sick leave and paid vacation days has been found to be a better practice over one paid time off policy, providing greater flexibility when employees are ill and removes conflict with vacation days.
Macy’s has a strategic objective to be the employer of choice with competitive pay and benefits rooted in equity and consistency.7 Although Macy’s offers paid time off for eligible employees,8 they do not disclose how much time is provided or which classifications of employees are eligible, nor do they have a publicly available policy on paid sick leave. During the height of the COVID pandemic, Macy’s acknowledged the critical importance of providing paid sick leave and adopted a COVID-19 Emergency Leave and Pay Policy.9 With 38 jurisdictions already adopting paid sick leave laws,10 proactively establishing paid sick leave for all employees would reduce the burden of the growing patchwork of regulations.
The need for a separate paid sick leave benefit is of growing societal concern. Earlier this year, a group of 150 institutional investors, including State Treasurers, representing more than $3.6 trillion in assets sent a letter to Macy’s highlighting this issue but received no response.11 Finally, recent Congressional passage of a bill requiring railroad companies to provide paid sick leave provides further evidence of the national interest in this issue.12
We believe adopting a comprehensive, permanent, and public paid sick leave policy would mitigate reputational, financial, and regulatory risk to the company.
1 https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ebs2.pdf2 https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ebs2.pdf3 https://www.bls.gov/news.release/leave.t01.htm4 https://voxeu.org/article/pros-and-cons-sick-pay5 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5649342/6 https://justcapital.com/news/a-corporate-guide-to-paid-sick-leave/7 https://www.macysinc.com/_assets/macysinc/files/files/Macy%27s_Inc._Sustainability_Report_2020_vF.pdf8 http://view.ceros.com/msl/macys-report-2021/p/99 https://www.macysinc.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/1614/a-message-to-our-customers-regarding- coronavirus10 https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/resources/economic-justice/paid-sick-days/current-paid-sick- days-laws.pdf11 https://www.iccr.org/investors-escalate-pressure-companies-adopt-paid-sick-leave-policies12 https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3756478-house-passes-bill-to-avert-rail-strike/