This happened years back when I was young, naive and spineless.
I worked at a small convenience store on evenings when I was in university. One day I was closing by myself and a few hours into my shift, I went to the washroom and experienced a pain unlike anything I had ever felt (spoiler, it was my first UTI and the worst one I've ever gotten).
Fairly convinced I was dying, I called the owners (husband and wife). The husband picked up and I was already crying. I tried explaining my situation but he got weird real and passed the phone to his wife.
I explained in was in intense pain and asked if I could leave to go to the hospital (asking instead of telling was my first mistake).
She went quiet today and I heard muffled sounds. The husband came back on the phone. “Hi. Yeah. So tonight is a school night, and we can't leave [child] here without a baby-sitter.. and [only other employee] has night classes today”.
I was denied the right to leave or lock up, and had to close as scheduled. I worked the last 4 hours of my shift holding back tears and serving customers with a smile.
At the time, I wasn't thinking how weird it was that both of them needed to be home with their child.
Years later, I'm not thinking about it either. Cause guys, it doesn't fucking matter. It wasn't my problem.
This was an emergency. It you own a business, you assume the risk and take on the responsibility of managing emergencies. You make contingency plans. You hire more than 2 employees, get a babysitter or accept you're gonna have to close for the night.
If you do not share in the profit, you do not take on the weight of your job not being able to replace you.
I think that my first step towards not being such an idiot in my opinions on worker's rights.
Today I work a job with over 60 days of paid sick leave available, and coworkers who jump at the prospect of overtime at time and a half. Very few people don't want to put work into anything. We just don't want to do it if the costs don't outweigh the benefits.
Just a little rant. Keep fighting the good fight.