[dragonwriter]

> “Protecting pay for store closures…and for workers who leave early or are sick” also doesn’t really make sense in an _hourly_ work environment.

Yes, it does. Hourly environments can (and some do) have paid leave for special circumstances based on, e.g., scheduled time during which the special circumstances prevent work. I’ve seen this in both private unionized environments and public sector (union or not) ones.

Some of this (e.g., paid sick leave) may be balance-driven, whereas paid leave for closures, and external events which force early unplanned shift termination often would not be, since these conditions would be decided by management, but the decision would trigger paid leave for individuals impacted.