"If an employee does not have any accrued or available paid sick leave, however, (e.g., if the employee has already used all of his or her accrued and available paid sick leave under the employer’s policy, including as consistent with Labor Code section 233), and if the employee has an unscheduled absence that would otherwise violate the employer’s attendance policy, the paid sick leave law does not prohibit the employer from giving the employee an “occurrence” for such absence, even if the employee was actually sick and/or could have used paid sick leave for the absence if he or she had any such leave accrued. The paid sick leave law does not “protect” all time off taken by an employee for illness or related purposes; it “protects” only an employee’s accrued and available paid sick leave as specified in the statute."

Sure, and three days is pretty slim - its easy to be pretty sick for three days with a single occurrence of illness. But the above quote is just a wordy way of saying "you aren't entitled to more sick leave than the 3 days provided for by this law".

Federal law [0] says you cant be fired for taking up to 12 weeks off per year to take care of, among other things, "major illness" (understood to mean that it does not cover things like colds or flu, unless they require hospitalization). But, it also only applies to businesses with over 50 employees, so non-chain restaurants are unlikely to follow this law.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_o...

Ok. But honestly, the other 69% of Americans that don't live in California don't get this. Not only that, but it can somehow vary by employer.

Other places simply have it for everyone, and a union negotiation won't take away the safety net, as it is a right. It can only add benefits to the minimum.

There's a fair number of state laws by now:

https://www.workplacefairness.org/paid-sick-leave

I haven't reviewed them all, but the ones I've looked at are pretty meager, ~40 hours a year (and often conditional on employer size), which won't do much other than take the edge off if you get more than a little sick.