As a health care professional, I am impacted by the COVID-19 crisis every day. Locally and statewide, we have a paid sick time ordinance allowing workers to stay home when they are sick, or when a loved one is sick.
Laurie Trieger led the fight for that, which has benefited all of us in this crisis. Without this, everyone would continue to drag themselves into work regardless of how they feel or how sick someone is at home in order to keep the job or pay they desperately need. As we see now, this endangers the entire community. In tandem, we see how much employers must pay sick time appropriately to keep us all safe.
Fortunately, Oregon’s workers have been accumulating sick time benefits since Trieger went to bat for us and won. Many of Oregon’s sick workers were able to stay home early in this epidemic. While we’ll never be able to quantify the effect, we know that this has slowed the spread of the virus.
Trieger has led effective campaigns for living wages, healthy food in schools and low-income neighborhoods, and the elimination of predatory lending practices by payday loan companies. She cares about kids and working families and has smart ideas and creative strategies to adapt to and combat climate change.
Effective leadership at all levels of government is what we need. I encourage everyone in South Eugene to join me in supporting Trieger for County Commissioner. Stay home and stay safe!
Kendra Northam
Eugene
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