Petula Dvorak has a column in the Washington Post today. She argues that “paid sick leave would be good medicine for the workforce.”  What she is referring to is “mandatory paid sick leave.”

Compelled by force of the government. No choice.

She recounts a number of sad instances of hardship falling on employees who become ill or who must stay at home to care for someone else who is ill in their family. She argues for passage of the “Healthy Families Act.”

Here’s why she is dead wrong on this issue. It may well be a good idea for an employer to have an employee stay at home but still get paid. If it is a good idea the only one in any position to judge the idea is the employer. If the employer believes this to be in his or her rational self-interest than the employer and employee can agree to these terms.

It is not the place of government to use its heavy hand to force this agreement, however. Such a law makes the employer a slave to the employee. This is immoral.

I wonder what she would think about this law: let’s create a law that says when things get really busy in the workplace that the employer can compel the employee to work for free. I’ll bet she wouldn’t go for that.

Again, no one argues that sickness or injury or 100 other things don’t cause hardship. No one argues that it isn’t a good idea for an employer to pay an employee for staying home. That’s a decision a rationalemployer can make and I can envision a situation where that is the right decision. However, it is no place for government intervention and regulation. Especially in a bad economy. A crazy law such as the Healthy Family Act would be one more unnecessary, unwarranted and harmful tax on the small-business owner.