As part of MomsRising's Blog Carnival on the anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Carol Joyner, national policy director for the Labor Project for Working Families, wrote that FMLA is only the first step in strengthening and protecting working families. She argues that paid sick leave is an important goal that we should pursue.

Today, let’s celebrate 20 years of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Since 1993, the FMLA has been used more than 100 million times, helping 35 million people keep their jobs and health insurance while caring for a family health crisis or a new baby. That’s truly something to celebrate.

But this groundbreaking law didn’t just pop into our lives in 1993. A committed community of activists—women’s groups, union members, faith allies, family advocates and more—worked together for nine years to win it.

Activists rallied in front of the Beacon Street Dunkin' Donuts in Boston to build support for a bill in the state legislature that would require employers to give earned sick leave hours to their employees. The bill is sponsored by state Sen. Dan Wolf and state Rep. Kay Khan and would ensure that workers get one hour of sick time for each 30 hours they work, up to a maximum of at least 40 hours a year, depending on the size of the company (smaller companies have some exemptions).

Chances are everyone around you is sick. Not a pleasant thought, but recent reports show the flu season is one of the worst we've seen in a decade. Check out this Google map to see your risk factors for catching the flu in your state. 

Next time you’re sitting down at your favorite restaurant, you may be getting an unordered side of germs with that cheeseburger or maybe unexpected exposure to the latest flu virus with that healthy garden salad. Why? Because, as this new video from the Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United illustrates, 90% of all restaurant workers have no paid sick days.

If you’re not a germ-a-phobe already, you might become one if you see the new movie “Contagion,” the story of a fast-spreading, deadly, worldwide epidemic spread by a single touch. The science thriller remains fiction, so far. But there’s a real movie that will give you a fright, too.

If the nation’s workers had access to paid sick days—today, 44 million workers don’t—it would mean a dramatic  drop in hospital emergency room visits and save about $1 billion a year in health care costs, according to a new study due to be released this week.

Connecticut has become the first state in the nation to have a law requiring employers to provide paid sick days, and efforts to pass similar legislation are under way in several cities and states including Denver, Seattle, New York City, Massachusetts and Georgia. Only two cities in the nation, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have paid sick leave laws on the books.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D) last night vetoed a paid sick leave bill passed by the City Council that would have made Philadelphia the third city in the nation guaranteeing workers paid sick leave. Says AFL-CIO  Secretary-Treasurers Liz Shuler:

It’s a shame the mayor ignored what the majority of Philadelphians say is the right thing to do for working families. When workers in the city get sick, they are still faced with the awful choice of their health or their paycheck. The mayor could have changed that.

Workers at the top of the wage scale are more than four times more likely to have paid sick days than workers toiling near the bottom wage scale, says a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Economic Snapshot.