Denver's Mandatory Sick Leave Part 3

Please read Parts 1 & 2 before reading this.

I promised in Part 2 that I would let you know who was covered if this initiative passes. The answer is obvious; the employee. It should be simple enough to understand that an employer pays the employee for not coming to work, because as we learned in Part 1; proponents of this initiative say that lack of paid sick days, "poses a serious health problem not only for affected workers but also for their families, their employers, the health care system of Denver and the community as a whole".

It wouldn't make sense to cover an employee's mom getting sick. Or would it? What if Johnny, our employee visited his mom when she was contagious, and went to work and spread these germs to fellow workers, and they went home and infected their families, and soon everyone in the community descended on the health care system of Denver, that would be bad. (My English Professor would love that last sentence)

Don't worry your pretty little head, because lucky for us, the proponents of this initiative thought about the above mentioned scenario, and mom's illness gets our Johnny the paid sick time he deserves.

Who else gets our Johnny paid time off? Well, any family member you can think of is covered by the all-inclusive definition as provided in this initiative. “Family member” means:
(i) A person related to an employee by blood, marriage or legal adoption including a child, parent, spouse, sibling, grandparent or grandchild of the employee;
(ii) A foster child, parent, sibling, grandparent or grandchild of the employee, a child to whom the employee stands in loco parentis or a child for whom the employee is the legal guardian;
(iii) The employee’s domestic partner, as defined in Section 24-50-603, C.R.S.;
(iv) The spouse of an employee’s child, parent, sibling or grandparent;
(v) A legal guardian of an employee, a person who stood in loco parentis to the employee when he or she was a minor, or a parent of the employee’s spouse;
or
(vi) Any other individual related by blood or affinity whose close relationship with an employee is equivalent to a family relationship.

I'm sure my dog, Jake is covered under this definition somewhere; and do you think there's a hidden meaning in their repeated use of the word loco?

I'll be back with Part 4 soon, and if you plan on voting for this initiative in November, please get a shirt that says, I support Initiative 300. Then stop in and visit any of our community businesses.