South Cook News

Illinois state Sen. Michael E. Hastings (D-Frankfort) advocated for airline employees and legislation allowing workers to use earned sick leave time. 

Hasting, along with another legislator and several airline employees, gathered recently to promote Senate Bill 645. Under the proposal, airline employees would be able to use earned sick time to care for ill family members.

"This is, quite simply, the right thing to do for working families in Illinois," Hastings said in an April 8 Facebook post.

Hastings found inspiration in leading the measure and advocacy for airline employee sick leave due to two of his constituents who are flight attendants for Southwest Airlines and are from the district he represents. 

In attendance was Corliss King, whose husband was diagnosed in 2017 with end-stage renal disease and was hospitalized various times for the condition itself and due to surgeries, which left him in need of care at home. King was then able to use her sick leave time until a law in 2017 passed that removed coverage for airline employees.

“Airline workers in Illinois are often forced to choose between caring for a sick family member or earning their paycheck,” King said the release. “Even if a worker has sick days available for use for themselves, there is no requirement that companies allow these days to be used to care for other sick family members. We should not be forced to choose between our job and our loved ones, nor should we be subject to discipline simply because of a family emergency.”

Senate Bill 645, which was put before the Senate Labor Committee and passed on March 18, will further be considered when it is brought before the Senate in the next few coming weeks.