nikkim

Hi,
Hubby has just had offer letter through from employer and it says that there is no sick pay. (we are going via AB PNP route). Obviously we are a bit concerned about this as I will not be working as we have two young children.

Does anyone know if this is commonplace for all employers? It is a smallish company and I was just wondering if anyone has had experience of this and whether it could possibly be negotiable or if that would be too cheeky?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks
Nikki

Judy in Calgary

That is ridiculous.

No, it's not all that common.

I don't think you should take it lying down. But I don't know if I'd even bother having any further dealings with them. I'd take it as a bad sign. If that's their attitude towards sick pay, goodness only knows what their attitude is towards a lot of other things.

It sounds like the kind of company that I jokingly refer to as a "bottom feeder" (low on the food chain). I worked for a company like that once, and it wasn't a pretty picture.

The same company shamelessly used foreign job applicants to do stuff for them for free. For example, a recently arrived Chinese immigrant came for a job interview. They said they wanted to see an example of her work, to get an idea of what she was capable of. They said that, to do that, they wanted her to do a hypothetical case study for them. It wasn't a hypothetical case study at all. It was a job for a client of theirs. She did it for them, they thanked her but said they didn't need her services after all, and then they turned around and submitted her free work to their client.

They did many other things that were chintzy too. They were not exactly generous with their Canadian staff either, but they especially took advantage of recently arrived foreigners (in addition to the Chinese woman mentioned above).

I suppose it depends how desperate you are to get to Canada and how desperately you need this company's sponsorship of your PNP application. But it is not what I would view as a good start.
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dingbat

The first job I had in BC had no sick pay and I had to wait a year for any vacation time to be taken. If a child was sick - I was docked pay and lost eight hours seniority. The man sat next to me got paid $2.35 more an hour than me - and we did the same job. Employment laws here suck, be warned.

nikkim

Thanks for your reply Judy.

The company have always seemed really keen on employing my husband and have been the ones driving the process along.

He does not necessarily need this particular job as he had other job offers on a recent reccie, but this company was keen and he really liked them.

Do you think it is worth trying to negotiate sick pay?, all other aspects of the job offer e.g pay are really good

thanks
Nikki

Alberta_Rose

We had a patient who badly needed a hip replacement, but told us he was not able to afford it as he had no sickness benefits.

I have to say that the Canadian nurse I was with was totally astounded that he had a job that offered no sickness benefits, so I guess it's not all that commonplace here.

He was a recent immigrant with Spanish as his first language though, a political refugee from Colombia, and I guess he was grateful to get a paying job and be allowed to stay at all!

Judy in Calgary

If your husband liked everything else about the company, I believe it would be worth his while to negotiate sick pay. If the company won't budge on sick pay, it tells you what they're like when the rubber meets the road. In that case, don't walk. Run.
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nikkim

ok thanks everyone. I have sent them an email so we will see what they say

Nikki
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Surrey Expat

This is not uncommon, especially for seasonal and part time workers, less so for full time. Under employment standards, in BC anyway an employer is not obliged to pay sick time. If any sickness or injury is work related of course WCB kicks in. It also depends on the industry and company, some smaller companies just cannot afford sick pay, if one employee is off sick they may have to pay others to do their job and possibly at overtime rates.

If they are not offering it to anyone else, you may not be able to negotiate it in, this sets a precedent to the rest of the employees. One also has to look at the whole compensation package, some employers pay above average wages with no sick pay and others don't.

A lot depends on how hard they find it to get quality employees and how badly you want the job. Worth trying to get it included, but if they don't then decide if you should be looking for another employer.

MB-Realtor

Sick pay is not compulsory in Manitoba, most hourly paid jobs here do not seem to offer it.

EI pays out if you are off work for extended periods, provided you qualify.

Workers Comp., for on the Job Injuries, provided you qualify.

Canada is more like the USA than Europe when it come to employee benefits, working conditions etc.

Maximum overtime here is 1.5x, I know in the UK you could get 2x + a day off, your not going to get that here.

The standard working week is 40hrs.

Standard Holidays is 4% of pay.

No Sick pay.

No Maternity Pay.

Union jobs are different, but they are hard to get.

You just have to negotiate your own package, and hope that you are worth that to a prospective employer.

Juliew

I would read these comments with a grain of salt. Decent companies offer sick pay and at least 3 weeks vacation. All employees are eligible for paternity pay (34 weeks I believe) and all women for maternity pay (17 weeks), provided they have met the minimum number of hours, which I think is 600.

JonboyE

It is quite normal. In BC Government and some large companies offer a limited number of "personal" days a year. Smaller private companies rarely offer anything.

Your OH would be entitled to EI benefits after two weeks or WCB wage loss benefits is it is a work related injury or illness.

Also, some compsny benfit schemes offer disability benefits.

Judy in Calgary

There is a difference between maternity leave, which is time off from work, and a maternity benefit, which is money.

In Alberta, a woman is entitled to maternity leave if she has worked for her current employer for 52 weeks prior to taking maternity leave. If we assume a work week to be 40 hours, I make that 2,080 of work before maternity leave.

An Alberta employer does not have to pay a woman while she is on maternity leave. All the employer has to do is give the woman a job that is equivalent to her old job when she returns from maternity leave.

The employer does not have to give the woman a job after maternity leave if the employer can demonstrate that that would represent a hardship for the company.

It is Employment Insurance (EI) that pays a woman money while she's on maternity leave. She has to have worked for 600 hours to be eligible for maternity benefits and parental benefits from EI. A birth mother is entitled to 15 weeks of maternity benefits. A birth mother, birth father, adoptive mother, or adoptive father is entitled to 35 weeks of parental benefits. Only one parent may take advantage of the parental benefit, or two parents may choose to share the parental benefit between them. If a birth mother takes the 15 week maternity benefit to which she's entitled and the 35 week parental benefit to which she's also entitled, it gives her a total of 50 weeks of combined maternity-parental benefits.

But this money comes from the EI fund into which the mother will have paid prior to taking maternity leave, and into which she has to continue paying while she's on maternity leave.
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MB-Realtor

ONLY IF you qualify for EI, it is not a statutory requirement for the Company to provide these benefits, as it is in the UK.

dbd33

It's not but, in twenty-five years here I've never had a position that offered sick pay or vacation pay. Our business is strictly a flat rate for hours actually worked. My partner works for a division of the local government and even she gets neither sickness nor vacation pay, "commonplace" is too strong but I think it's an increasingly popular way for employers to cut costs.

Surrey Expat

It seems your partner might want to point her employer to the Ontario employment standards act on vacation pay.

http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/sta...e41_e.htm#BK55