... It's doubly true for blue collar workers in Asia.

White collar workers get like 15-20 days off a year in Korea, and these are also used for sick days - at enlightened companies, you can work from home on a sick day and have it not count as leave...

I don't know that much about what goes on in blue collar work, but something tells me the workplaces for natives just that are just a few steps above the blue collar labor done by migrants living in barracks in isolated locales working 60+ hour weeks aren't the type to liberally give sick days.