scrubbedexpat091

Reminds me of a sign one of my less than good employers had by the time clock "unless your dead, your not sick enough to miss your shift."

It starts at a young age in US anyhow, way back to grade K at age 5 they rewarded those with perfect attendence all year, and punished those who missed whatever arbritary number of days the school set for being excessive.

Jerseygirl

Makes me think of when my daughter was at school. If she was sick…she was in bed…flat on her back…no TV…computer etc. that soon sorted her out.

scrubbedexpat091

That is where I had the upperhand as a kid, we didn't have a computer, I really didn't watch TV, had no friends, didn't play sports, there was almost nothing they could take away that I cared about.

But I don't recall ever trying to just stay home by faking, my mom was a paramedic and we learned pretty quickly we were never going to fool her.

dbd33

Well, quite, those have always been the conditions under which I, and my associates, have worked. One major reason why contractors are better than staff is that they don't get sick.

I didn't realize that governments in Canada had any such requirement. As noted, the idea of taking sick leave is alien to me. I suppose I view it in the same light as, say, maternity leave, taking it is a choice that the taker must trade off against career advancement.

The comment on spreading diseases isn't fair as, if one has an infectious condition, one can work remotely (I worked with someone who was in a hospital bed on assorted drips). As noted above, the circumstances of white collar workers differ from those of, say, bricklayers or cooks. It's office workers that I can't see needing sick pay.

spouse of scouse

You're quite right, given that you worked from home that comment was unfair. Sorry.

Re. my 6 months sick leave. I was a manager, so a white collar worker. I worked from 3 sites and worked from each of them several times per week. I'd had a motor vehicle accident and after my first and subsequent spine surgeries I was on narcotic medications and in a brace. I was so muddle-headed that the pharmacist had to organise my medications into a segmented box with dosage times on it. I couldn't drive. My job involved responsibility for 105 staff and their at-risk clients. I was on-call for critical incidents, whether medical or behavioural, and for any support my staff needed. In short, I couldn't do my job. Paid sick leave was part of my contract of employment, so I used it with the wholehearted approval of my organisation.

You think white collar workers don't need paid sick leave because they can still do their jobs no matter how sick or incapacitated they are. I think they do need paid sick leave, for all the reasons I and others have mentioned. Who'd have thought it, people disagreeing with each other on the internet.

scrubbedexpat091

How are we defining white collar office work?

Hotel manager is white collar office work, but most of what a hotel manager does requires them to be physically present on property, one example I would consider white collar office worker who can't really work from home very well.

dbd33

The shock is not that people disagree on the internet but that they can be civil about it

I accept that people can be medicated to the point of not being able to work but the idea of telling people that they can have n days off per year to be sick just seems to me like a way to have people work n days less for the same money. It promotes a culture of not turning up when you have a condition that puts you below par but doesn't absolutely incapacitate you.

Paying people by the hour works well, I think, because it removes the employer's interest in the life of the workers outside work. I have a team of contractors, I don't have to count their dead grannies because they're not paid for going to the funerals.

Pollyana

I was in a similar position to Spouse, accumulated sick leave for years, refused to take days off just because the sick leave was available. Then at the start of this year I was forced to take 6 months off, no choice, I simply couldn't see well enough to leave the house, never mind go to work. Working from home simply wasn't possible as I couldn't read the computer screen. By some miracle my sick leave lasted until I had been operated on and recuperated, though it was a close thing.
The fact is that if I had not had that sick leave available, I would have quickly been homeless and starving, as I have no money to fall back on, no house or car to sell, no other means of supporting myself.
So to my way of thinking, its not a case of being "paid not to work", its a case of if its part of the employment contract, its there to be used, to help staff when they are unable to work. Being a "white collar worker" doesn't make one immune to conditions that make work impossible.

BristolUK

I do. Nowhere near as often as I'd go to work when I wasn't well enough though.

And, of course, I must have contributed to absences of other white collar workers passing my colds and things on to them.

Tirytory

I think the lack of sick pay can be directly related to people dying of COVID in Ontario, certainly related to it’s inevitable spread. I’m sure you can imagine a situation where someone who can’t afford to lose their wage would lie about symptoms. Given that people who are in that situation would probably also have poorer health, then you have the perfect situation for COVID to affect them.

Even Boris recognized that they needed to put that into place during the pandemic for those who needed it.

Even in non pandemic times, this should be in place.

Farmer on a bike

There were plenty of incentives for people with Covid symptoms to stay home and get paid. EI changed the rules so there was no waiting period, workers could get paid for days off due to Covid, symptoms of, or taking care of someone. CERB was rushed through, an incentive for many people to stay home, not work and collect $2000 bi weekly. Even if someone was off for just 3 days, they still received $2000 under CERB, university students were getting this during the summer. Many businesses found job applications pretty much dried up once CERB was announced and stayed that way for the duration. There was the CEWS (Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy), employers could continue paying employees and get up to 75% back. Employers were bound by law to ensure people did not attend work when sick, experiencing symptoms or having being exposed to Covid or living with someone in isolation. Employers then directed employees to where they could get assistance. In BC WCB checked up many times that employers were complying with the legislation. Other provinces had similar legislation.

All this has to be paid for, the govt has one source of income - Us. If business has to pay, the new rules in BC will add 2.4% to payroll, on top of already spiraling costs. Who will pay for this? All of us, the consumer, it will end up in pricing, as has the HST fiasco in BC and the MSP ending up in Employer Health Tax. None of this is free, we are all paying for it, even if we don't directly see it, it will be in there, embedded in the price, sometimes multiple times if one accounts for the supply chain, manufacturer, wholesale, retail, mark up along the line.

scrubbedexpat142

I recall an ex BIL, civil servant (UK) chafing that he had yet to take off his sick day allocation. What to do? 10 days in Tenerife, of course.

Farmer on a bike

I knew an govt employee in Canada, when he came up to retirement, he worked one week in January then retired, so he got paid his 8 weeks vacation for that year and all of his 'banked' sick time.

Rete

Yes, some people will call in sick whether they are or aren't if there is something they want or needs to do or if they just don't feel like working that day. Many employers in NYS (I can't speak for other states) ask for a doctor's note if you are out of the office on sick leave for 3 days or more. If you have a fever or a particularly heavy cold and are in the contagion period, the employer doesn't want you in the office/work as you will infect others and they will in turn get sick and need to take sick leave.

In my last two employments, I had 10 sick/personal days leave per year. They were not carry-over days and not accumulated and if unused on December 31st, you received a check the next pay period for those days unused. It was an incentive for many not to use those days without good cause.

BristolUK

There's a difference between could get paid and would get paid.
I can see steam rising over in Kelowna so I'll let Js come back on that.