Officials at the Labor Department Thursday ruled federal contractors – private companies who contract with the federal government like Humana, General Electric, General Dynamics, Hewlett-Packard Company, MIT, AT&T, the list goes on – are required to give employees up to seven days of sick time annually, allegedly creating a new benefit for more than 650,000 workers.

The Washington Examiner has the story:

In addition to the new Labor rule, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that starting in March, it will collect new data from employers that will let it improve investigations of possible pay discrimination…

The EEOC is charged with handling employee complaints of discrimination, and the agency will start asking companies to submit pay data by gender, race and ethnicity from companies with more than 100 employees…

In its statement announcing the sick leave rule, the White House said more and more private sector workers are receiving sick leave, but said many are still being left behind. “When workers get sick they may have to choose between caring for themselves or paying their bills,” the White House said.

Policies like this are exactly the kind that discourage private companies from hiring more employees and instead hiring third-party temporary employees who don’t have the same benefits as full-time employees. Furthermore, it encourages abuse of sick-time policy for those who don’t need sick time and pushes out timelines for already costly and sensitive government contracts. What a disaster! Click here to get involved and help Tea Party Patriots push back against big-government policies that hurt people instead of help them!