by frog
Tummy bugs that cause diarrhoea and vomiting are particularly unpleasant illnesses. So is flu. Their only redeeming feature – unless you have an underlying chronic disease, or have contracted a serious but rare acute illness like salmonella or meningitis that can masquerade as a minor illness for a short while – is that your body’s immune system fights back and you are usually well enough to be back at work in one to three days.
Most instances of gastro-intestinal and respiratory illnesses are transitory, but the pathogens that cause most of these illnesses are highly infections or contagious, either through aerial transmission or by physical contact. So the best thing to do with symptoms of illnesses like these is to stay at home and out of contact with other people, unless you are extremely ill.
John Key and his Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson have other ideas. They want to enable employers of workers who contract illnesses such as these to require their employees to either front up at work or get a medical certificate to excuse them from work, for even one day’s transitory illness:
Employees should not be worried about getting a medical certificate if they are genuinely unwell, Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson says.
“It shouldn’t worry any employee who is not trying to pull a sickie,” she told NZPA.
Over the weekend the Government announced widespread changes to employment laws, including that employers can request proof of sickness or injury if an employee takes a day off sick. However, bosses will have to cover the employee’s costs for getting a medical certificate.
Sorry Kate, it may not worry you but it worries me. This has huge adverse public health implications. People who have no medical need to go to their GP will be forced to do so under threat of loss of leave entitlements, so they will end up spreading their disease around the waiting room. Others will choose to front at work and soldier on (as the Codral drug advertising puts it), and spread their disease among their workmates.
More workers off sick or at work but underperforming through illness, and consequently lower productivity! The total opposite of what John Key’s Government says it wants to achieve.
What’s more, a straw poll of GPs Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman conducted yesterday revealed only 12 of 40 GPs surveyed could see a patient on the same day as they reported their illness. The upshot – more time off work just to get the medical certificate, and at a time the symptoms may have been resolved anyway.
This is bone-headed policy from National – straight out of the 1990s. Sorry, John and Kate, but you have already given me a dose of the bum-squirts.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Health & Wellbeing by frog on Tue, July 20th, 2010
Tags: diarrhoea, flu, john key, Kate Wilkinson, Russel Norman, sick leave, vomiting
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Or, even worse, the risk of crashing a car by someone who is semi-delirious with ‘flu or having to vomit out the window with a tummy bug while attempting to drive to their doctor.
I find it hard to believe that even the Nats would come up with something this stupid.
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I’d rather not if you don’t mind
Trevor.
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At the time I made a resolution that if I was sick, unless I was in hospital, I’d be at work. Under no circumstances was I going to cough up $50 or more to see a doctor for a cold (and neither should the employer be expected to either for that matter).
In any case, when your’re sick with a cold, the best place to be is at home, not in the doctor’s waiting room.
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Lets say it costs $50 to send an employee to the doctor, and the lost pay for someone taking a sickie is $200. The employer had better hope that more than one in four people sent to the doctor are taking sickies, otherwise the doctors fees are going to cost more than the lost pay. Factor in the employees who come to work sick with colds and so on, and the cost could be even higher.
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samuela – it’s a great law because for the vast majority of workers it’s completely irrelevant.
It costs workers nothing.
At worse they are sick and get a free doctors visit.
Obviously because of cost, employers will only use if with people taking a lot of sick days, when they think they’re not actually sick.
Just because of the law, it’s likely that a lot of people will think twice before falsely claiming sick pay when they’re not sick.
If you’re not ripping off you’re employer, it’s vrtually irrelevant.
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1) Most workers don’t abuse sick leave and this creates a no trust climate.
2) GPs don’t support this as sick people who don’t need medical intervention (and should be at home) will be required to visit their surgeries when they are already stretched with heavy patient loads.
3) Most GPs can’t accommodate same day appointments.
4) Employers can already question sick leave and require proof if they have real concerns but after 3 days.
5) Poor employers will abuse this facility.
6) Many diligent workers will turn up to work when they should be at home, just incase they maybe not quite sick enough.
7) Sick children will be sent to school even more often than they are now.
Crazy, crazy, crazy crazy!
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Trevor.
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Policy that makes it necessary for us to push people with simply treatable illness through the MD offices, when there aren’t enough MDs to go around, is lunacy. Lunacy as policy is no stranger to NACT…. but it is not acceptable for this country.
I just don’t see a lot of abuse happening here Photon, and Frog is sorta right that this is policy straight out of the 90′s … he just got the wrong century.
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That’s how you see the intention of the new rules photonz1?
How odd. Key is creating a rule that applies to EVERYONE just to deal to a few ‘rogues’.
Sounds just like Key’s removal of certain cough mixtures. Take them off EVERYONE, just so a few rogues can’t make ‘P’.
Talk about a Nanny State!
Nanny McKey is far, far worse than Helen Clark ever was. He’s romping through the draconian legislation you profess to oppose.
Good on ya photonz1, ya loyal wee drone, you!
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What Key is proposing seems to be to allow employers to demand a medical certificate when they do not have reasonable grounds for such a belief. National wants to enable employers to act unreasonably.
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Last time I checked, workers get a *limited* amount of paid sick days. Whether they blow all their entitlement on lame hangovers or genuine sickness it makes no difference to the cost to the employer because the worker will take their full entitlement of ‘sick’ days one way or another – very few people never get sick. Once all those sick days are used up, any further ‘sick’ days are counted as unpaid leave which cost the employer nothing.
If anyone could call in sick as often as they want and still get paid, then requiring a doctor’s certificate would be reasonable. But that’s not the case – there are already strong restrictions on sick days (simply limit their supply to a reasonable amount!), which limits their potential for abuse far more effectively then involving the medical establishment.
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rimu – your attitude is exactly what needs to be stamped out.
You think you have an “entitlement” to being paid for sick days whether you are actually sick or not. It’s effectively theft.
Bad attitude was the second biggest reason for jobs in the 90 day trials being terminated.
I’d certainly terminate employment of anyone who thinks they have a right to take my money for doing nothing, by falsely claiming to be sick.
In my opinion, an attitude that you can rip off your employer makes you unemployable.
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Hardly a licence for abuse, I would have thought.
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The home that the person goes back to, who went to the doctor with a skin rash, only now they have bacterial diarrhoea and the ‘flu as well.
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Yes, I do have that entitlement because that is how often people get sick. 5 days each year is hardly anything!
I choose to save up those sick days and use them when I am genuinely sick, because I like money and I don’t get drunk on sunday evenings. This costs my employer the same as if I used those sick days for when I was hungover and then used unpaid leave for when I get genuinely sick. It’s called unpaid because it’s unpaid… The only person who loses from the drunkard who takes lots of unpaid leave is the drunkard – not only do they lose income but they get sick like the rest of us
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Employees who turn up sick and pass their bugs on to other workers are not helpful to productivity.
I recall one workplace where a long serving senior employee never ever took a day off. His attendance when sick resulted in many other employees losing time after catching his bugs.
‘Waiting rooms’ are part of the make work strategy of the ‘Health (Sickness) Industry’.
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Then when you want a day off, go to the doc at your employer’s expense, describe symptoms that will be judged ‘non-specific virus’ or similar, and maybe even get sent off for more tests, which means even more time off work.
This is just the Nats trying to use legislation to fill the place of trust and cooperation, things which don’t exist in many workplaces (and are reduced every time worker’s rights to be represented or to organise are attacked).
It’s pointless, as thanks to the incredible ingenuity humans display in evading or undermining unreasonable rules, trust and cooperation can never be effectively substituted by more rules. Trust and cooperation can, however, be further undermined by legislation which makes employees feel policed and untrusted.
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PS folks.. personal insults towards other contributers, does not make for interesting reading.. can we stick to the topic, PLEASE ?
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Rather than screening out the greenies, you should screen in the righties. Authoritarians make ideal employees (especially if subservience is more important than initiative). If proper use of sick leave is important to you, then you should definitely only hire right wingers, photonz
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I know the answer to this conundrum – free market economics.
GPs should charge $500 for a same day sick note service to the employers.
I reckon that should reasonably compensate them for the extra hassle.
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rimu says “If proper use of sick leave is important to you, then you should definitely only hire right wingers, photonz”
Filtering out people who think it’s ok to rip their employer off by falsely claiming sick leave would in the interests of every employer.
People who want as much as possible for doing as little as possible (or nothing at all) are the last people you’d want to employ.
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Totally agree with you there Photo. That is why I do not employ accountants, lawyers, management consultants, employment agencies and MBA’s if I can avoid it.
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Kerry – I’d agree with much of what you say, though we’ve usually used employment agencies in the past as that was a legal way to give people a trial as a temp before taking them on permanently.
It’s a very expensive way to do it, but it meant we had people we were happy with, and workers who were happy with the job, BEFORE the big commitment of a permanent contract.
As the law stood before, everyone signed up to a very large commitment with neither side really knowing what they were getting.
It’s a bit like commiting to buy a house only by looking at the pictures in the advert.
By the time you find out it’s not quite up to the advert (or interview), it’s too late. There is a huge cost to sell (dismiss) then more time and money to look again (advertise and recruit) for a replacement.
Employers being forced to sign permanent contract for workers BEFORE they know how good they are is a rediculous situation for NZ to be in.
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It is far easier for the government to look at those few employees who take the “odd sickie” then inflict the whole workforce with heavyhanded controls.
Meanwhile the legislation to regulate finanancial advisors was dumbed down to the point of being almost ineffective because those that lobby in the interests of the finance industry have ready acccess to Ministers.
Unions, who advocate and lobby for average working people, are not given the same access or respect and that is why it is working people who have their civil rights compromised, working people who get the smallest tax cuts, working people who subsidise polluters under the ETS and working people who are sacrificed for the benefit of the great god-GDP!
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How is an employee supposed to offer proof of illness if they have not already gone to a doctor at their own expense when an employer asks for such proof 3 days later, when the illness has usually passed leaving little trace?
Trevor.
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Trevor – obviously that’s the employers problem.
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Under the proposed legislation, won’t it be the employee’s problem?
Trevor.
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The law allowed for a probation/trial period in an employment contract before the 90 day rule (for SME’s) was passed. . I still cannot see why an employer would need 90 days to figure out if an employee is unsuitable. Even the DOL report says that most of the employees considered unsuitable were fired in the first two weeks. Keeping somebody hanging for up to 89 days is unjust.
Businesses lose much more to management fraud nationally than staff taking sickies which is limited to 5 days for most anyway.
The ones that seem to have the most problems with this are industries which have a tradition of treating staff badly.
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You wrote “Whether they blow all their [sick leave] entitlement on lame hangovers or genuine sickness it makes no difference to the cost to the employer because the worker will take their full entitlement of ’sick’ days one way or another”
I have to agree with Photonz1 on this one. You _are_ advocating theft and dishonesty, and this attitude makes me very angry (and I’m no right wing authoritarian; in fact my political views are probably the exact opposite).
Sick leave is designed for very specific purposes, such as when you are sick, need medical treatment, and caring for sick dependents. It is not designed for sleeping off a hangover, or because you simply don’t feel like going to work.
If you want time off from work for purposes other than sickness or caring for sick dependents, take annual leave. If you don’t feel you have enough annual leave, fight for increased annual leave or a shorter working week; I’ll support you on this 110%. But do not advocate dishonesty and theft; this makes you no better than dishonest and unscrupulous employers who rip off their employees. Just because you see other people taking advantage of the system does not mean it is right for you to do so.
I sincerely hope your views on taking sick leave are not too common; I don’t see much of this where I work for example.
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From reading the comments of Photonz the lack of trust she displays would make for a very unhappy (and therefore unhealthy) workplace.
Photonz: Try this little experiment: “When you point your finger at someone else you will find that there are three fingers pointing at yourself.”
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well said Samiuela.
rimus attitude a great example of why the law is needed.
Most employers I know are like us. Five sick days per year, but if you’ve got employees you trust and they’re sick for ten or twelve days, you pay them anyway.
And they’re honest about when they are sick so the next year it might be none or just one or two.
Even in the railways department I worked in in the 80s (a govt dept famous for being slack) you never took a sick day for a hangover, and faking a sickie was a serious discipliary offence (usually a single warning then sacking).
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Kermit – why don’t you take a business you know absolutely nothing about, then based on your total lack of facts and knowledge, make up an extreme conclusion, and get it completely wrong – oh you did already
“From reading the comments of Photonz the lack of trust she displays would make for a very unhappy (and therefore unhealthy) workplace.”
When I try your hand experiment, I only seem to be able to get my fingers and thumb curled in with the middle one pointing up.
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But the Government’s proposals have potential for even worse abuse. Say I need to go to the doctor to renew a prescription for a regular medication. Under what the Government is proposing, instead of taking an hour off work or going at lunchtime or after work, I will be able to feign a bad headache, get a medical certificate on the basis of the “headache”, take the whole day off, with my employer paying for both the day off and my regular medical consultation.
Sometimes it is better to just trust people to act in good faith than try to heavily regulate everything. I’m not aware of any evidence that suggests widespread abuse of the current sick leave provisions. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
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Toad, I have no doubt that people will be able to dream up ways to abuse the government’s proposals. Personally, I don’t think the proposal is a good one, for the reasons I pointed out near the top of this thread.
The issue I have a major problem with is the dishonesty in the use of sick leave which Rimu was advocating. Such dishonesty (making sure that one uses the full amount of sick leave days, even if one isn’t sick) does immense harm to those trying to fight the proposal for doctors certificates for every single day of sick leave. It also is no help for any attempts to increase the minimum amount of sick leave; employers will rightly say why should the sick leave minimum be increased if dishonest employees will simply abuse this and take the extra days off as sickies?
Here’s a contentious bit of speculation. I do not know who Rimu is. Having said that, I can’t help wondering if Rimu is in the so called “Generation Y”, and his or her attitude to abusing sick leave reflects a lack of work ethics amongst that generation? OK … sorry to all those younger workers who have very good work ethics …. I am just stirring a bit … but it is an interesting subject. Generation Y has been raised in a couple of decades where society has increasingly focused on personal gain at whatever cost and using whatever means, including dishonesty. Is this being reflected in the work ethics that younger people have, or not?
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Photonz: your displayed lack of comprehension, digital dexterity and ability to follow simple instruction does not surprise and simply cements the previously expressed view:
“From reading the comments of Photonz the lack of trust she displays would make for a very unhappy (and therefore unhealthy) workplace.”
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Kermit –
Stunning that you have a final conclusion on something you have zero knowledge of.
It proves your ideas and conclusions are fully preconceived before you have seen any facts.
(and I think you missed the point with the hand gesture)
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rimu – for your information (and benefit in the future?) of what the law finds acceptable. In a case in the Employment Court an employee who had worked for a company for 22 years took a sickie and got caught working on his house.
He got sacked so took up an employment dispute to the court.
The court ruled that it was serious misconduct, as abusing sick leave is “obtaining payment by a false pretence”.
Hence the employment court ruled that sacking for falsely claiming sick leave is fully justified.
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Photonz: I missed nothing. Your displayed lack of comprehension, digital dexterity and ability to follow simple instruction did not surprise and simply cemented the previously expressed view:
“From reading the comments of Photonz the lack of trust she displays would make for a very unhappy (and therefore unhealthy) workplace.”
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Kermit – you have been caught out making extreme conclusions on something you know absolutely nothing about.
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Photo: Trust, respect and valuing employee contributions are significant ‘rewards’. An unhealthy work place which regards its employees with suspicion when they report sick does nothing towards building trust and respect.
Would you want an employee to turn up sick out of fear they may be thought less of if they take sick leave?
Would you want an employee at work if the suspicious, unhealthy work environment was making them want to be somewhere else?
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Kermit – more proof from you that if you jump to extreme position without knowing anything about the facts, you’re liable to be completely wrong.
I’ve never not trusted a sick employee. If they say they are sick, I pay them, even if they’re well over their 5 annual sick days.
However it’s obvious there are more than a few people like rimu and their supporters who think it is their “entittlement” to use false pretences to rip off their employer.
You claim to be concerned about “trust” and “respect” in the workplace.
How come you haven’t uttered a single word against those here saying it’s ok to blatantly rip off their employer?
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I don’t expect to be paid when I’m not working, if I have used up my 5 days (or whatever it is) of paid sick leave. Why on earth would I expect to get paid for not working?
However I do expect that when I am sick I can lie in bed and get better rather than drag myself to a germ filled crowded waiting room to get a piece of paper.
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Here’s an idea to stop people wasting their sick leave: at the end of each year, allow any unused sick leave to be converted into annual leave!
This provides an incentive not to waste sick leave on hangovers, without reducing worker’s existing entitlements
I’m a genius. I have a feeling photonz won’t like it though
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rimu says “I don’t expect to be paid when I’m not working, if I have used up my 5 days….”
The discussion has been about PAID sick days, as was you comment about taking a “full entitlement” one way or another.
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rimu, Actually I think that’s a pretty good idea and in the past I’ve thought of doing that myself.
I think there are quite a few employers who do have that writen into a contract, and that’s fine.
However if you don’t have that and you falsely claim pay for taking a day off, then that’s serious misconduct.
We have five days written into our contract, but some years have paid quite a bit more than that – some years less. All we want is honesty.
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Photo:I do not condone any one ripping off anyone else. Building a respectful relationship between employers and employees is the way to go. Management creates the environment for the workplace culture. I am aware of one organisation at present with a cruel culture which has led to several staff on ‘stress leave’. This is in nobody’s interest.
Contented, respectful and valued workers do not throw sickies.
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don’t knock it zippo – I sell jk’s squirts as carrot juice every morning.
At 6am they think it’s great!
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So far the point has been made, I think accurately, that this law change is neither necessary nor desirable.
Workers and employers are better served by fostering trust and honesty, than distrust and coercion as the change provides. The law as it stood gave employers enough tools to weed out a bad actor and the distinct possibility that this change will result in a lot of UNNECESSARY MD consultations is a significant drawback. It fosters “us vs them” and you are right in there with that as your principle focus. You vs your workers… and then you deny that YOU do that. Interesting dichotomy.
Your unrelenting accusations that we favor some sort of theft from the employer are also a feature (a negative feature) of this thread.
Only the most absurd misreading of posts by Rimu or Kermit could be used to reach for those accusations, but this leaves us unsurprised.
You consistently seem to favor absurd misreading of Green policy. I am sure I am not alone in finding this objectionable.
BJ
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Bj’s words,
“Workers and employers are better served by fostering trust and honesty, than distrust and coercion as the change provides” could just as easily apply to the national standards debate, another which photonz1 vigorously thrashes his arms and legs around in. He’s an atagonistic ‘character’, photonz1, and one that I don’t believe for one second, is genuine. ‘He’s’ a construct. No thoughtful, real person would pursue ideology the way ‘photonz1′ does. Ever the champion of Key and the National Party, no matter what, no ‘photonz1′, not today, not ever.
Fun to mock though!
Remember photonz1′s yippin’ and yappin’ over Section 59?
Oh yes, that was some lurid theatre!
The world was surely ending there and then. He whipped it and whipped it good, did photonz!
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When you peel away his mask…
http://www.mooncostumes.com/image/4087
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So far you’ve only alleged that one person has made that claim, and they say they do not believe this. And you say you always have believed an employee who says they are sick.
So it seems you are just creating a hobgoblin – of the “everyone I know is OK, but we must be able to police people more because I’m certain there’s hundreds of low-lifes lurking out there all desperately trying to screw somebody over, I don’t have any actual evidence of this, but it’s true…” variety.
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robert – if your posts attacking people were removed, and you only left those commenting on issues, there wouldn’t be much left.
Like the China debate – a single comment compared to dozens fo abusive posts.
There is a saying that sums your comment up perfectly, and it includes the words, black, kettle and pot.
bjchip – I think you need to re read the thread.
When rimu was asked it they thought they had the right to take sick days whether even if they were not sick, the answer was “yes I do”
How did you get confused about that?
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“When rimu was asked it they thought they had the right to take sick days whether even if they were not sick, the answer was “yes I do””
Photonz1-This confuses me!
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I think we all know what Photo’s attitude to employees is. Pity he does not come out from cover so we can warn prospective employees away. As for ad hominum attacks see his replies to me on the 90 day thread.
Employers get the employees they deserve. Any management textbook has references to the studies which prove this statement.
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Kerry says “Employers get the employees they deserve.”
Thanks for the compliment.
sprout – the exact question to rimu was
“You think you have an “entitlement” to being paid for sick days whether you are actually sick or not. It’s effectively theft.”
rimu’s reply
“Yes, I do”
Appallingly, ripping off you employer with fake sick days is quite common, and there seem to be plenty here sticking up for that atitude.
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Photonz1 gives me a dose of the bum-squirts
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I told you this would happen, filthy habit you know…..
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Photonz1,
You are taking Rimu’s reply to your question a little out of context, but overall I agree with you. Rimu said he was entitled to five days sick leave, because that is how often people get sick. However Rimu’s other comments suggest he does view sick leave as leave which can be taken even if one is not sick (which is incorrect, and the way Rimu worded it suggested he actually condoned dishonesty).
What Rimu fails to realise is that if you don’t get sick, then you are not entitled to take the sick leave (until such time as you actually get genuinely sick or need to care for a sick dependent). One is entitled to accumulate 20 days of sick leave (or more if agreed upon with the employer).
The details about the minimum sick leave entitlements are here: http://www.ers.dol.govt.nz/holidays_act_2003/sick_leave.html
What makes me so angry about people with Rimu’s attitude is that it undermines efforts to get genuinely improved working conditions. For example, I consider five days sick leave per year is a bit tight, especially if one has a family. In any year I reckon I would take a couple of sick leave days for personal sickness, and two or three for looking after sick dependents. There goes the five days. A couple of years back I had to take ten days sick leave for a single illness, if it wasn’t for the fact my employer gives me ten days sick leave per year (plus extra carers leave), and allows me to accumulate a large sum of days I would have been screwed. I can’t afford to take leave without pay for sickness, because bills such as food and rent still need paying.
I think I could make a good argument for at least ten days leave per year, provided it is used as intended. Unfortunately people with the selfish (and dishonest) “entitled to sickies” attitude undermine such efforts to improve working conditions.
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samiuela – I’d have to agree with pretty much all you said.
I had a sick child for three days this week (unfortunately I haven’t been entitled to sick leave or paid holiday leave for over 20 years). I agree that the dependents thing makes a big difference.
And you make a good point about people ripping their employers off. Unfortunatley this is much more common than many have made out here (even much more common than I thought).
A quick google search like survey on sickies and similar throws up the following info
- 72% of Kiwis admit falsely claiming sick leave
- only 46% of sick days in UK are geniune
- 33% of American workers falsely claim sick days in a given year
- average falsely claimed sick days in UK is 3 days per year PER worker
- when NZ meat workers sick pay changed and went up, there was a massive 40% increase in sick days taken.
- when meat workers bereavement pay went up ( as part of the holidays act) bereavement leave went up by 180%
- there are significantly more sick days taken by permanent workers in meat works who don’t need a doctors certificate as soon as those in their first six months.
- after the holidays act, staff at one meat works was even found to have a secret roster for falsly claiming sick pay.
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This is generally true. Likewise employees get the employers they deserve; basic I/O. The problem is that crappy employers tend to create crappy employees and crappy employees tend to create both crappy employees and crappy employers.
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samiuela “Sick leave is designed for very specific purposes, such as when you are sick, need medical treatment, and caring for sick dependents. It is not designed for sleeping off a hangover, or because you simply don’t feel like going to work.”
‘Simply not feeling like going to work’ is often a sign of depression, last time I checked thats a mental illness. Actually alcoholism is an illness too. Personally I’m in favor of renaming sick days as personal days to cover any barrier to going into work, it might just encourage honesty too like actually telling your employer your depressed or drink too much. We all seem to be in agreement that honesty is best for everyone.
Dishonesty goes both ways, like an employer blatantly lying (and admitting so upon arrival) about how much work there is when telling you he can’t let you come in 30 minutes late.
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I wonder if it would be better to simply remove the requirement that someone be “sick” – a term that is not defined in the Employment Relations Act in any case – and just allow 5 days a year leave for “personal health and domestic reasons”.
That way, the day on the golf course or in front of the TV watching a cricket match would be completely legitimate as doing stuff you really want to do is beneficial to your mental health. But if you run out of leave for “personal health and domestic reasons” and are sick, it would then have to be unpaid leave or annual leave.
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toad – one issue with “personal health days” is who gets the final say on when they are taken?
i.e. if there is a really arduous day coming up at work, or if the weather is really bad and you have to work outside, can everyone simply tell the employer they will be taking a personal health day?
If the timing of days off are agreed with the employer first, then effectively it’s just annual leave, like the additional week of annual leave recently given to workers.
As I remember, one of the main reasons that was given was for having ane extra week was so workers could take the odd “mental health” or personal health” days.
At least part of the new laws will be for workers to be able to “sell” a week back to their employers if they want to. I think that’s a good thing.
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Toad,
So then, five days of instant leave with no prior notification? It would certainly be more honest, kind of defeats the point of having sick days though.
~
PaulBags,
Simply feeling like not going to work is also a very normal part of ones daily life and can hardly be used as even a broad indicator of depression. If the person does actually have depression, even sub-clinical depression, there will be many more signs. Having a hangover is an indicator only of an instance of alcohol intoxication, not of habitual alcoholism. If it would qualify as alcohol abuse depends on the degree to which that intoxication impairs functioning and how frequently this happens.
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photonz1, Sapient – my idea is that 20 days should be for planned (ie annual) leave, and 5 days should be for unplanned leave.
I doubt the difficulty for the employer would be any worse than now – after all most employees take more than 5 “sick” days a year anyway. Better to have it honest, rather than have some regulatory regime that requires you to demonstrate through a medical certificate how sick you really are.
As I have said earlier on this thread, if an employee goes to their doctor with a “really bad headache”, the doctor will sign off anyway, because there are no medical diagnostics that will determine whether the employee reallyhas a “really bad headache”.
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Toad,
I do like the idea, at least in principle; my concern is that this will motivate the employee to take it earlier in the year and thus that when the employee is actually sick there is no sick leave remaining.
On a side note, I’ve never taken paid sick leave; always unpaid. Five days a year, though, seems rather small to me. How frequently do people get sick? I have all sorts of endocrine problems, so I have no idea how frequently ‘normal’ people get sick; I’m essentially incapacitated most days.
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Sapient – How frequently do people get sick? It probably depends to some extent on your situation.
Being self employed (and never ever getting paid to be sick) I’ll take a day off every two or three years.
I’ve family in the same situation but they take less than me.
Most years my employees have taken one or two days (they don’t have dependents) but in one or two years they’ve needed closer to ten.
Dependents makes a huge difference though. I’ve had kids sick four days for this week alone, and probably six or seven days in May and June.
However we’re in the situation where weve designed our business to be able to manage situation like sick kids and still work.
To take an average though, I’d think 3-4 days on most years
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The genesis of this thread was an ill-considered idea to enable an employer to require an employee to obtain a medical certificate.
This requirement has potential to clog the medical system;expose workers to more bugs; create mistrust; be of highly questionable value etc.
Why would we want to go there?
A healthy work environment builds trust and respect. This policy does the opposite.
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Kermit – surveys show 72% of Kiwis admit to falsely having claimed a sick day.
And you talk of building trust. The current law is failing badly.
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photonz1-I admire you for your determined and fanatical support of a flawed policy despite all of the thoughtful, factual and reasoned arguments presented against it. Incredible!
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sprout – worst case scenario is you get a free doctors visit.
The screaming protest about this (thou dost protest too much) suggests a lot of people (72%?) are very worried about getting caught ripping off their employers.
At first I thought this was only a problem for a small minority of employers, but the rabid protest about getting a free doctors visits led to more reasearch.
Falsely claiming sick leave is clearly a much more serious problemm for employers than most people think.
At first I thought the new law was just a good idea. From the loud protests I can see now that it’s more than that – it’s desperately needed.
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At first I thought the new law was just a stupid idea. I can see now that it is desperate.
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@Sapient July 23, 2010, 8:02 PM
I agree that 5 days year seems rather small, especially given that it has to cover people with sick partners and kids. I had to take 4 consecutive days recently to care for my partner when she was recovering from surgery.
Many collective employment agreements provide for more than 5 days – that’s one of the advantages of joining a union, because unions are often successful in negotiating more, whereas individuals are not.
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Photo: There are lies, damn lies and statistics. There is another study where 93.5% of people over 65 say that throwing sickies is not OK. It appears that you inhabit a monochrome world. The real world is not black and white. For example:
I’m aware of an office where the senior staffer is in cancer remission with a severely compromised immune system. Staff are sensitised to not turn up if they have a sniffle or feel vaguely unwell.
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kermit – that’s really silly. The workplace would be better off giving the senior staffer in cancer remission more time off instead of keeping lots of other people away from work when they just have a sniffle.
So much for your stats – do you have any that are relevant? (i.e. that apply to workers – instead of retirees)
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Photo: I didn’t comment on the merits of that workplace. The example was to show that your ‘Bushist’ black and white, ‘for or against’ philosophy is at odds with the wide variety of circumstances that exist in the real world. The senior staffer is out of sick leave and needs the work (and the money).
It comes as little surprise that you regard the views of people over the age of 65 as ‘irrelevant’. However, a whole community pays, one way or another, for the ‘cost’ of hostile work environments which lack trust, respect and compassion.
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Falsely claiming opinions as being clear facts in internet discussions is clearly a much more serious problem for the internet than most people think.
Considering how many of the people on here protesting this question whether it will actually deliver on it’s aim, without creating more problems to boot, I would have thought the evidence to support the opposite of what your claiming as clear is right their in front of your eyes.
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kermit. Surveys show that 72% of NZ workers have falsely claimed sick leave.
Just because retired people think this is wrong, doesn’t change how many people take sickies.
What a weak arguement – because retired people think it’s wrong, then there’s no problem. (though it does suggest they are far more ethical than todays workers and the problem is getting worse)
I presume you have failed to come up with any real facts or statistics to show that falsely claiming sick leave isn’t a problem.
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“..Surveys show that 72% of NZ workers have falsely claimed sick leave. ..”
nice to know they are human…eh..?
and the other 28% are liars as well…?
..and you photonz..?..your history of ‘sickies’..?
and…do you not think the boss-class gets/screws enough profits out of our low-wage/short-holidays/long working hours/s.f.a sick-leave working class..?
mmm..???
squeeze the bastards some more…eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Photo: I never said it wasn’t a problem. I(and many others)say that the proposed ‘solution’ is not a solution. Building trust and respect through inclusive, respectful work places will achieve more than suspicious, impractical demands for medical certificates after the event ever will.
Why do you believe that people over the age of 65 are all retired? Can we also add ‘ageist’ to the list of your displayed prejudices?
There are no references provided by you for the surveys which you claim show 72% of New Zealand workers abuse sick leave provisions.
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I don’t care what position the greens have as long as you stop trying to conflate yourselves with the environmental movement. I find the latter utterly contemptible.
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Photonz1, as usual you “cite” statistics but provide no links. The credibility of your assertions would be enahanced if you linked to sources that provide some actial evidence – otherwise I an a number of other commenters here are likely to suspect you are just making it up to suit your political ideology.
Please answer me one question – given that the current law permits employers to require a medical certificate for one day’s sick leave application if they reasonably suspect the application is not genuine, why is athere a need for any change?
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The bar of reasonable suspicion is too high for his liking, he’d rather be paranoid?
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