By DENNIS LITTLE 
Los Alamos

In letters from Wendy Ann Kreutz Clayton (Letter) and Daren Savage (Letter), complaints were made about a new law requiring businesses to provide sick leave for employees working at least 30 hours per week.

My question to you is why should this even need to be mandated? EVERY person gets sick occasionally. For those not making that much money (and this is who is affected most by this law), they frequently come in sick and spread it around to their co-workers and your customers. 

Had it not been for my father being retired military before he passed away (I was 1.5 years old at the time), my single mother and my 4 siblings and I would not have had paid leave or medical coverage at all – she managed a small coffee shop type restaurant similar to Waffle House and it provided almost no benefits including sick leave.

Perhaps the employers have to raise their prices to cover this, which means you have to pull an extra dollar out of your pay when you go out to dinner or go shopping at one of the local businesses in town.  I personally am all for paying people what they deserve and providing them with basic benefits. That includes paying teachers a reasonable wage, paying restaurant workers a livable wage, paying day laborers a livable wage, etc. It’s bad enough that these same people can’t afford to live in town and have to commute from off the hill, now you’re going to complain because they get a benefit they should have in the first place?

And yes, I voted for Rep. Chandler and will do so again if she runs for office.