The teacher with the runny nose, the store clerk with the hacking cough, the short order cook with the fever -- one of the most severe flu seasons in years is making it difficult to avoid people who come to work sick.

These ailing workers aren't necessarily being thoughtless. Like many people they may not have a choice: Staying at home could mean losing a day's pay or risking getting fired.

An estimated 42 percent of North Carolinians have jobs that offer no paid sick leave. The percentage is disproportionally higher among workers at stores, hotels, restaurants, schools and child-care facilities -- public places most prone to spreading germs.

Supporters of legislation that would mandate paid sick leave for North Carolina employees hope they can ride the coattails of this winter's severe flu season when the General Assembly returns to work in May.

Spearheaded by the N.C. Justice Center, a coalition of advocacy groups and unions representing blue-collar and low-wage workers is pushing for a change in state law.

The group envisions a bill similar to the proposed Healthy Families Act, federal legislation sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy that would require businesses with 15 employees or more to provide at least seven paid sick days.

But any state legislation will run into opposition from the North Carolina Chamber and the North Carolina chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, two outspoken lobbies for small-business owners.

"Don't mandate it," said Gregg Thompson, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. "Let the employer and the employee work out time off as needed."

Both groups spoke out against related bills that failed to be approved in the legislature last year. Senate Bill 1092 would have required seven days of unpaid sick leave. House Bill 1711 also called for seven days of sick leave, only with pay.

North Carolina is one of a dozen states expected to consider sick-leave legislation this year. In addition to state action, Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, is pushing for a vote on the Healthy Families Act this year. Both Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, have come out in support of mandatory paid sick days.

Covers most employers

Businesses that employ 50 or fewer workers make up 98 percent of North Carolina's economy and create 67 percent of new jobs statewide, Thompson said. Many of these small businesses cannot afford to pay their workers for sick days, he said.

A case in point: The Tractor Place, a dealership for farm machinery and lawn mowers in Knightdale that has six full-time employees.

The dealership is a family business in which everybody pitches in when an employee stays home, said co- owner Brian Mize. Sick leave is unpaid, Mize said, but that doesn't mean it's discouraged.

"We've always worked with" the employees, Mize said. "If you don't take care of people, you don't have any people. I don't need the government to mandate this, that and the other."

Jenks Rinkes, who has worked in the dealership's parts department for five months, recently lost two days of pay while she stayed home with a fever and bad cough.

"It would have been difficult to work," said Rinkes, who was on the mend but still congested a few days later -- and back at work.

She said she wouldn't mind better benefits, but when she was looking for a job, she couldn't find work that offered paid sick leave.

Of about 1.6 million North Carolina workers without paid sick leave in 2005, more than one-third had service-sector jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Institute for Women's Policy Research.

Jobs with paid sick leave were the hardest to come by in hotels, restaurants, food services and construction. But manufacturing had the highest number of workers without paid sick leave.

Women, Latinos and African-Americans are represented in disproportionally large numbers in jobs without paid sick leave, said Louisa Warren, a senior policy advocate with the N.C. Justice Center.

To make a case for a change in state labor laws, Warren points to research indicating that employers could save money by spending on sick leave.

She argues that increased productivity and lower turnover more than make up for the cost of paid sick leave. The N.C. Justice Center estimates that businesses would come out ahead about $120 per worker per year.