For the past five years, frontline workers have risked exposure to COVID-19, risking their health and livelihoods in service to the people and communities of this Commonwealth. Their efforts helped keep Pennsylvanians safe and supplied with crucial goods and services as the pandemic raged on, and with new variants of COVID appearing seasonally, our support for these workers is still paramount. 
  
I will soon be reintroducing legislation establishing a presumption that during a declared disaster emergency, epidemic, public health emergency, or pandemic, a frontline worker’s medical condition and inability to work due to hospitalization, quarantine, isolation, or other control measures required to control infection or exposure is a direct result of that worker’s work-related duties. Affected workers will not be required to use sick, vacation, personal or other accrued paid or contractual leave to cover their absence from work. Instead, they will qualify and be eligible for unemployment compensation for the duration of the period of incapacitation or inability to work and workers’ compensation for all medical costs related to infection or exposure. These provisions apply to future declarations of disaster emergency as well as what remains of the current COVID-19 pandemic. 
  
This bill was previously introduced as HB 1431 in 2023-2024 wiith the following co-sponsors: Representatives Guenst, Rozzi, Isaacson, Pisciottano, Madden, Gergely, McNeill, Malagari, Sanchez, Delloso, Hill-Evans, Hohenstein, Kinsey, Parker, Galloway, Green, Neilson, and Otten.  

 

It is imperative that we acknowledge the hazardous duty frontline workers are required to undertake just by going to work and ensure that these brave workers receive the benefits to which they are entitled. Please join me in support of frontline workers by supporting this important legislation.