Should employers pay for jury duty?

I work for a major health chain in CA. A nonprofit one at that. I've gotten a summons for jury duty three times in the last 3 months. One for state court and two for federal court. The first two times I filed an extension because I couldn't go due to my wedding. This last time I figured I'd go as I felt it was part of my civic duty and it's a Federal case so I thought it would be interesting. I assumed my work made up the difference and jury duty was part of my benefits package. I was very wrong. I work for a health system that runs hospitals and a corporate office. I looked up on our intranet policies and procedures and found that a small group of employees in our corporate office get paid 4 weeks of jury duty. But other employees don't. But we all work for the same system and reading this policy they said how they support this civic duty and encourage all to do it.
Well I cannot afford to go two weeks without pay and I would prefer not to use my hard earned vacation to sit on a jury for two weeks. I however do feel that it's my duty as a citizen to serve on a jury and that our court system probably needs more people like me. Also I'm sure my employer gets many tax breaks being a catholic non profit organization. But what disgusted me the most was discussing this with my fellow coworkers who were giving me hundreds of ideas about how to get out of it and how they would never want to sit on a jury especially if it was coming out of their own pocket.

This is the same organization that sent out a mass email telling us how we should support nationalize healthcare. I find it disgusting. And for me nationalize healthcare is great for my employer but bad for my country. And I put my country first. So what do you guys think about jury duty. My wife's company (major retailer) pays the difference for jury duty. Many companies like Costco do as well. I'm in CA by the way.

I personally think they should. It's something you have to do, there's no way around it without getting in trouble yourself, so I think it should be paid for. At least partially, like a short-term leave or the like.

That's just my personal opinion though. I haven't had to go through it yet.

Oh god, don't get me started. I've just spent two out of three days covering a murder trial with the death penalty where jury misconduct may result in a mistrial meaning bye bye evidence.

Here they only pay $15 per day and I believe a $5 lunch stipend. That won't even begin to cover lost wages. From what I understand they can claim your jury pay on an employer's taxes but I may be wrong about that.

I got a summons to appear for jury duty on April 10th. I cannot leave my office to sit around and deal with jury duty during the single busiest week of my year. I work for myself and any days missed means lots of billing that doesn't happen. the pathetic $60 a week they offer in exchange for my not billing thousands of dollars is a joke.

there are plenty of people who need the money and who are currently in the federal, state or local system via any means of benefit and they should be the first responders to jury duty.

I see many reasons why we would want that.... I see only one major "CON"

Some dumbsh its don't want to go back to work but still get paid so they delay, and delay, and delay.

Don't laugh, some people suck.

[edit on 23-7-2009 by infolurker]

reply to post by Crakeur

I've been called at least three times that I can remember in the past 12 years or so and every time it was cancelled the day to appear for selection. The last time was the same week as selection for the Casey Anthony trial and all i know was that the case I was preselected to serve on was a murder case (that much is disclosed here). Due to a sudden storm the courts closed for two days and I was not selected again. I still have a nagging feeling about that one.

It would be nice if they did.

I like the bit about "support nationalized health care! But don't serve your community/state as a juror!" Pfff.

Well, I hope you get payed. Catholic non-profit charities piss me off anyways

Having just completed Jury attendance in New Zealand I will only get my public transport costs reimbursed because I didn't make it as far as sitting on a jury . Given that Employers are already forking out for four weeks paid holiday and the Billions of dollars of inefficient government spending in Education and Health I am sure that the country could afford to pay jurors triple what they get paid now .

Cheers xpert11 .