On the subject of paid sick leave, as the trend of government mandating employee benefits for private employees continues – and specifically, paid family medical or sick leave – we found this Business Journal article particularly helpful in understanding who does and does not require paid leave as well as which states and or municipalities are looking to mandate leave as soon as they can secure enough votes. Currently only three states (California, New Jersey & Rhode Island) mandate paid leave with a fourth, New York, joining the group on January 1^st.  By 2020, Washington state and the District of Columbia will dictate it as well. Beyond that, 21 other states have legislation pending that would mandate private employers provide some sort of paid leave for their employees. If for no other reason, we need to arm ourselves with as much of this type of information as possible to best represent our – and your – interests. And to further drive the point home, a recently released annual report by CareerBuilder shows that 40% of workers called in for a sick day over the past 12 months when they were not sick, an increase over the 35% that did so in 2016. The study also showed that a majority of employees (54%) already have paid time off benefits (PTO) aggregating the employees’ sick, personal and vacation time.