Employers and sick leave : Hot Topics

Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:53 am

I know this article references H1N1, but the actual sickness aside, how do you feel about employers and sick leave? This article states that employees who are sick and take time off are risking losing their jobs. I was thinking about it and realized that I'm not sure how I feel about it overall.
- If someone is truly sick and has to be home, I feel that their employer should not threaten to fire them due to illness.
- How does an employer protect themselves from those who will fake illness to get time off?
- Is it okay for them to require a doctor's note?
I think it is wrong when parents send their children to school sick. It puts the other children at risk. I also understand the position they are put in with their jobs. Where is the middle ground? How can parents that work care for their sick children without getting fired?
http://washingtonindependent.com/66492/stay-home-if-you-have-swine-flu-unless-you-work-at-wal-mart
Stay Home if You Have Swine Flu, Unless You Work at Wal-Mart

<span class="right hidefromprint" style="margin-top: 1px; margin-bottom: -3px;">

</span> By Mary Kane 11/4/09 9:07 AM
During the summer, when swine flu was not yet a widespread reality in the United States, giant retailer Wal-Mart made the news
for being in talks with the government about possibly distributing the
swine flu vaccine through its extensive network of stores.
But now the swine flu has Wal-Mart under scrutiny for a very
different reason: Accusations that the retailer is leaving employees
infected with swine flu little choice but to come to work, due to its
punitive sick leave policies.
Citing a report by the National Labor Committee, the Institute for Southern Studies’ argues on its blog Facing South that Wal-Mart is essentially contributing to the spread of swine flu by making it financially prohibitive for employees to miss work when they fall ill.

Employees of the Arkansas-based retail giant — even its
food handlers — feel they have no choice but to work when they’re sick.
That’s because the company gives workers demerits and deducts pay for
staying home when they’re sick or caring for sick children.

It gets worse:

The situation is particularly difficult for Wal-Mart
workers who are single parents. The NLC reports on an instance in which
an employee got a call from her four-year-old’s preschool telling her
to pick up the child, who had a fever of 103 degrees F. Despite the
fact that the employee had already worked for four hours that day, she
got a demerit point for leaving and lost her wages for the rest of the
day.
The report says: “Parents have no choice but to load their children
up with Motrin and Dimetap to mask their symptoms so they can go to
school.”

Which, of course, leads to a vicious circle of other children at
school becoming sick, and spreading it in their families. Not to
mention the misery of a sick child facing a full day of school.
What’s particularly interesting is that Wal-Mart includes on its
Website some information about swine flu, including frequently asked
questions. Here’s the answer to “What should I do if I get sick?”

Stay away from others as much as possible to keep from
making others sick. Staying at home means that you should not leave
your home except to seek medical care. This means avoiding normal
activities, including work, school, travel, shopping, social events and
public gatherings.

Unless you work at Wal-Mart. Then, you’d better make it in for your
shift if you don’t want your pay docked or possibly lose your job. From
Facing South:

Wal-Mart has a demerit system that punishes workers who
cannot come to work due to illness. Employees who miss a day due to
sickness receive a one-point demerit and lose eight hours of wages.
Employees with more than three absences a six-month period face
discipline, and a fifth absence — even for a sick day — will result in
what the company calls “active coaching” by management.
A sixth absence leads to what Wal-Mart calls “Decision Day,” when a
worker can be either terminated or put on a year-long trial period
during which time he or she can be fired for any infraction and cannot
be promoted.

The swine flu sometimes can cause people to miss an entire week or more of work. At Wal-Mart, that could get you fired.
Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the Center for Disease Control
was hoping for this flu season, as it tries to contain a
life-threatening virus. Wal-Mart’s labor policies have long been
contentious, but this one could actually create a public safety issue.
If these allegations are true, it may be time for public health
officials to step in somehow, perhaps with fines for the retailer for
keeping flu-stricken employees on the job. And let’s not just pick on
Wal-Mart; it’s very possible that other low-wage retailers and business
are doing the same thing. Maybe the best option in the absence of any
government action is for customers to walk away. Is a bargain really
worth it if employees are forced to work while sick with the flu — and
potentially help to spread an unusually dangerous virus?

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:03 pm

this is a ruse. they want you to think it is about protecting workers and consumers. it's really an anti-walmart hit piece. many employers have strict, punitive absence policies.

my uncle, who has degenerative disc disease and is nearly crippled, recently had to take off work for an emergency back surgery. he was fired for missing too many days during a probationary period (he'd only been on the job 2 months). employment options (particularly in this economy) are extremely limited for him - he may never find employment again, but he had no choice.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:03 pm

I am a teacher and I feel that the district is mostly generous with our sick days. BUT they have started a new policy that you can be terminated if you have more absences than the months that you work. Last year I was sick a few different times in the year. Most of the illnesses were just bad colds. Enough to stay home for a day or two but not even bad enough for a trip to the doctor. I also had oral surgery and had to miss about three-four days of school because of that. I was over my sick days. The only reason I didn't get in trouble was because I missed some of the days after the evaulation period.

So far this year, I've missed two days. I had a really bad sinus infection, requiring a doctors appointment and antibotics for 10 days. I haven't missed a day since, although it would be nice to spend a day in bed.

I could see how low wage workers could not really take sick days. They already can't afford to take the day off and could get in trouble.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:14 pm

~supermom~ wrote:I am a teacher and I feel that the district is mostly generous with our sick days. BUT they have started a new policy that you can be terminated if you have more absences than the months that you work. Last year I was sick a few different times in the year. Most of the illnesses were just bad colds. Enough to stay home for a day or two but not even bad enough for a trip to the doctor. I also had oral surgery and had to miss about three-four days of school because of that. I was over my sick days. The only reason I didn't get in trouble was because I missed some of the days after the evaulation period.

So far this year, I've missed two days. I had a really bad sinus infection, requiring a doctors appointment and antibotics for 10 days. I haven't missed a day since, although it would be nice to spend a day in bed.

I could see how low wage workers could not really take sick days. They already can't afford to take the day off and could get in trouble.

That is REALLY scary. We need teachers...badly! What if a new teachers started in the district this year and got H1N1? If they took a week off for illness they will get fired? That is awful and I think people should be protected from that if they are truly sick (with a dr's note). Is there a union in your school district for the teachers?

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:19 pm

I havent read the replies but, I dont think that people should be threatened because they need to take a day off and so on. I used to work for walmart, twice actually and I got fired once because when I was pg with my middle child I was working and had some severe pain and was spotting, I left to go to the hospital and of course they didnt want me to leave and my job was threatened, I was then admitted to the hospital and I called walmart to tell them that and told them I would not be there the next day, well next day comes around and I am told that I am being let go because I was a no call no show, even though i had told them the previous night. I got my job back with them though less than a yr later. There was also a woman there that passed away during the time that I was gone, I was told that she was asking to go home because her ear was bothering her..well they didnt let her go home and she died from a SEVERE ear infection, thats how bad the infection was. I will say, Walmart does not care about the employees, all they care about is whether or not things get done and they make money and thats it. I think that especially during this time in pandemic, that they need to give people a break..if they are sick then let them have the time off..im not saying for people that just call in sick several times a week though, people that are actually sick. I would not want to take my children into a store and end up having a very sick employee wait on me and then in turn get my children sick.

Also, for those who have not worked at walmart, they will ask for a doc excuse..which is fine..BUT in order to have the excuse excepted and recorded as excused, you had to have been out of work for 3 days...isnt that crazy?

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:30 pm

my company offers 6 sick days a year. We can not use them to take care of sick children, we can only use them if we are sick ourselves. My manager lets my department take sick days for family, he goes against the company policy.

After you use your 6 days the company can determine whether to fire you or warn you or let you take any additional as unpaid days.

With the H1N1 so prevalent they've asked people to stay home if they have flu symptoms until they are symptom free with a dr note. They will not fire you, they'll have you take any additional as unpaid.

Its hard. Businesses need to be efficient, they need to do their work. Without employees thats hard. So on one hand I understand the company's need to fire those who use up their sick days. On the other hand if people come in sick to avoid taking more days then they infect others and suddenly more people are out which also diminishes efficiency.

Its a catch 22.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:46 pm

FarrahTTC#2 wrote:

That is REALLY scary. We need teachers...badly! What if a new teachers started in the district this year and got H1N1? If they took a week off for illness they will get fired? That is awful and I think people should be protected from that if they are truly sick (with a dr's note). Is there a union in your school district for the teachers?

That wouldn't be possible in a union state, like NY, it takes a miracle to get rid of anyone. (I dislike teacher's unions for this reason).

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:47 pm

I am extremely lucky. G was sick last week. Coughing, sneezing, fever and he is 13 months old. My work let me work from home and never questioned it. The only thing I got from them was genuine concern for my son. Well guess what, it made me work harder while at home and appreciate the job I have.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:52 pm

~julieann~ wrote:

That is REALLY scary. We need teachers...badly! What if a new teachers started in the district this year and got H1N1? If they took a week off for illness they will get fired? That is awful and I think people should be protected from that if they are truly sick (with a dr's note). Is there a union in your school district for the teachers?

That wouldn't be possible in a union state, like NY, it takes a miracle to get rid of anyone. (I dislike teacher's unions for this reason).

Yes, I am in NY and I didn't think they would ever be able to get away with that here. Unions are good and bad. They are good when they protect the hard working teachers and advocate for them. They are bad when there is a truly awful teacher in a district that has so much protection it becomes next to impossible to get rid of them.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:53 pm

I.Am.Who.I.am wrote:Its hard. Businesses need to be efficient, they need to do their work. Without employees thats hard. So on one hand I understand the company's need to fire those who use up their sick days. On the other hand if people come in sick to avoid taking more days then they infect others and suddenly more people are out which also diminishes efficiency.

Its a catch 22.

I definitely agree with this.

My company is pretty good with sick time. I got 40 hours last year (Nov-Dec), lost it Jan 1, but it was replaced with a new 40 hours. Tomorrow is my 1 year anniversary, and in my 2nd year, I get 2 weeks sick time, plus 2 weeks vacation. I can take it for myself, for my kids, to take my DH to Urgent care...oops, and I took a Friday once to go out of town for the weekend (sick time--no vacation time during the first year). If we run out of sick time, they will use our vacay, or let us go nagative. Like I said, they are pretty good about sick time. I realize that I am VERY lucky.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:58 pm

Walmart isn't the only one like this.

As a ECE, no matter where you worked, we were expected to go to work sick. Didn't matter if you had 8 week old babies or 3 year olds. It didn't matter if you had earned sick time. They hated when you used it.

Regardless of state daycare regulations, we had sick kids. Parents could not keep them home and risk loosing their jobs, if they had no backup, which was a majority.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:23 pm

I have never in my life worked a job in retail that gave paid sick days - hell, I have an actual "profession" and don't even have paid sick days(something I have to have post secondary education for, and a professional lisence/certification).

My mom and brother both work at our local Walmart. They DO get paid sick days (a certain amount per year), they also have so many personal days (paid), bereavement days (paid), emergency leave (paid). etc. They have extensive medical, dental, vision benefits, etc.

Sure, I get paid a hell of a lot more than my mom does at Walmart, but her benefits outweigh mine by a long shot.

I do not believe for one second that they are threatening their jobs for sick days.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 2:25 pm

Former Walmart employee... and yes, I agree, it's a hit piece by someone who hates Walmart.

I loved these two things:

"Despite the fact that the employee had already worked for four hours that day, she got a demerit point for leaving and lost her wages for the rest of the day."

Yes....cause she wasn't working...you don't get paid when you don't work. Walmart gives sick time/personal time & vacation time. And yes, she could have used it, if she had it.

"Employees who miss a day due to sickness receive a one-point demerit and lose eight hours of wages."

Once again - he or she didn't work...of COURSE they don't get paid...

Walmart is pretty cut and dried - show up, do your job, if your sick go home, use your personal leave/sick time whatever you want...if you don't have any...then you don't get paid.

Tori's dad's wife is a manager there - and he mentioned the demerit thing to me a while back. They instituted it because people were showing up late all the time...callingb in sick all the time...and because you tend to become friends with people you work with - which could lead to favortism, they chose a system that was 'blind' to who it was.

If you late x number of days in a certain period - you get written up, etc.

I currently get 4 weeks of vacation time, one week of sick time, and one week of personal time. I've been here 9 years.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:45 pm

I am lucky as a teacher in our county. We are given a number of days and personal days and can use them for ourselves or our kids. We have an illness of family reason for as one of our choices. I unfortunately have not had a year since my son was born that I haven't used more than my days allotted. I have had to take unpaid days. I have no choice when my kids are sick I have to stay home with them or my husband does but for a while he worked somewhere he couldn't take days.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:47 pm

I am an employer and anytime you are gone more than two days in a row you need to provide a dr's note. If I notice a pattern in being sick, like if someone is only sick on Fridays, or if people are sick when family is in town, or if people are sick every week without a chronic condition, I require a dr's note for EVERY absence. You don't know if you have H1N1 unless you go to the doctor. I had some people miss for weeks at a time because of it and they always brought notes in and knew to do it. I didn't give them any type of reprimand at all and definitely didn't fire them because I don't want the flu!!

I would love to have a demerit system here. I work for the government so you basically have to murder someone before you can get fired. 3 out of 12 of my employees are on the "one sick day needs a doctor's note" policy due to frequent absences (and then not being smart enough to not post all the great things you did on your day off on facebook)!

Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:19 pm

I've never worked anywhere that required a doctor's note to take a sick day. And I've only worked in one place where there were any firm limits on how many sick days you could take. At my PD's job, for example, we had two weeks per year of sick leave, but few of us took all of that, so we pooled our extra leave for people who needed it (we had a woman in our office able to take six extra weeks off with PPD after giving birth and exhausting her maternity and vacation leave, for example). In fact, in thinking of it, I think every non-teaching job I've had -- if it had any formal sick leave -- permitted sick-leave pooling.

I mean, I can understand that employers get suspicious of people taking leave, I guess, but I'm glad I've never worked anywhere that . . . well, suspicious.

Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:00 pm

At the financial companies i worked for, specifically the last one, they were pretty good about sick days. We had a week worth of paid sick days, and then you could use up any vacation time you also had (it started at two weeks paid vacation, so three weeks of pay.) You could call in sick but after the third day of absence you needed a note--but usually that wasn't enforced. After that, days off work were taken off your pay but no ramifications on your employment unless you didn't call in--three days of absence with no call to work meant you left your job. However, if you called in or had stacked up extra hours previously or promised to make up the time, they wouldn't dock your pay. If you were sick for longer than two weeks, short term disability (about 50% of your pay) kicked in, and after 6 weeks, you were eligible for long-term disability---both with job protection.

The reasoning behind it was: people coming to work sick or returning to work before they fully recovered transmitted it to others--which affected the bottom line much more than someone taking a few days off. When you've got five people in the cage dedicated to one specific fund or security and one gets sick, they'd rather 4 employees working full tilt for a few days and having a healthy worker return than have three weeks of employees getting sick, taking time off, coming back, spreading it to other workers, those people taking time off, the still-sick ones trying to compensate for the now overburdened, unbalanced workload and in turn not getting better (by working overtime and in a higher-stress situation) and infecting more people, affecting other departments. When you're working with the markets, you have to be alert and make no mistakes--a simple typing error could cost a client literally hundreds of thousands of dollars, which the company was liable for. Making sure people were well was a business issue, not an HR issue.

It worked pretty well. When the flu hit while I was there, everyone was vigilant and the bosses had no problem telling people to go home and sleep it off. People who had sick kids had to follow the same rules, but again, as long as you were a dependable worker without other issues, you could work out an arrangement (like coming in for a few hours on the weekends to make up time lost, I did that while pregnant) no problem. I think in all honesty people flaked off from work less because there was an element of trust and the acknowledgement that people get sick, people have to look after their sick families, and creating penalties for something that is just part of living and working with other people was more disruptive than reasonably acomodating a fact of life.

Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:33 am

I havn't really read any replies but i just wanted to add, i used to work as a cook for Cracker Barrel. I'm not sure if our particular store was run how they all are (some rules are left up to the general manager of the store) but for sick leave, you was only allowed a certain amount of days off. When i first started working there if you missed the day, it was 1 point, if you showed up late it was a half point. If you got to 4 points, you either faced losing a PAR (which meant also losing the pay raise you got with that par. So if you're PAR4, making 10.75/hr, you'd be knocked to a PAR3, and started making 10.50/hr, for example, you'd have to work towards making par4 again, just to get back to making 10.75/hr), or you would get fired. After like 2 or 4 months, points would start to knock off.

I saw alot of woman i worked with stress out over the fact they'd face getting fired if thier child was home sick. Myself alone was practically forced to work while suffering from a bad case of Bronchitis(among other things) since if i didn't show up, i could of faced being terminated.

And honestly, almost every food based company i've worked for has been the same when it comes to sick days - there are none. You basically have to show up, everyday, no matter what. It's always an inconvience if you're unable to work. Most restaurants would prefer someone working with the flu, then to be down a body. I never understood it myself. You'd think companies that deal with handling others food would be more concerned about the health of the employee's handling said food.

I will say though, in regards to not being paid for taking a sick day - I've honestly never heard of being paid for a day you didn't work, unless you're on a Salary wage. So not sure why that seems all that wrong or surprising.

Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:06 am

I can't believe how few rights employees seem to have in the US. Just a few points:

When I was ill in the UK all days were paid - a doctor's note was required for absence exceeding five days. Seem reasonable as if you are ill for a week chances are you visited the doctor.

Employees on extended sick leave were visited by personnel department to determine when they would be able to return to work - they could not be fired for being ill.

My mother took 2 weeks sick leave after my father died - no loss of salary.

My husband has worked for the same company for 20 years and can be off sick for 6 months (continuous period) on full pay.

Maternity leave in the UK is one year - not all of it on full pay - but job is protected. Germany and Austria this period is 3 years with job protection.

system can be abused - one of my dh's employees was off for months with a bad back - we did see her walking the dog though, when according to medical reports the woman could hardly move!

Isobel

Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:47 am

FarrahTTC#2 wrote:

That is REALLY scary. We need teachers...badly! What if a new teachers started in the district this year and got H1N1? If they took a week off for illness they will get fired? That is awful and I think people should be protected from that if they are truly sick (with a dr's note). Is there a union in your school district for the teachers?
That wouldn't be possible in a union state, like NY, it takes a miracle to get rid of anyone. (I dislike teacher's unions for this reason).

Yes, I am in NY and I didn't think they would ever be able to get away with that here. Unions are good and bad. They are good when they protect the hard working teachers and advocate for them. They are bad when there is a truly awful teacher in a district that has so much protection it becomes next to impossible to get rid of them.

I am in the union. I am a member of CTA, FEA and the AFT. I am also a full time salaried teacher with tenure.

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