Working Is Hard On The Health

I've been subbing and know what you're saying about stress leave. (Although my bookings are mostly end up to be for pro-D meetings.) I also think the concept of negotiating a set amount of sick days per month motivates some folks to make use of them.

Incidentally, the bearded white gentleman is my saving grace at work. Nothing subdues a class of teenagers like a couple pages of Darwin Awards.

I think everyone should take the kind of stress leave I and other self-employed do. The longer I'm not working, the more the stress.

Another alert from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation: "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!"

When the national average is 7.8 sick days per year, 23% more works out to less than two days more. Big deal!!

"The high cost of government absenteeism." What a misleading statement. All workers acrue sick leave credits. This has been negotiated in the collective agreement. These credits are a part of the employee's benefit package. The costs have already been taken into account - workers get sick leave in lieu of a higher hourly rate.

Perhaps the CTF should do a study on how much sick leave is not used and how the taxpayer are benefitting from this. Where I work there are some people with over 2000 hours of accumulated sick leave. Accumulated sick time cannot be cashed out upon retirement, so this will be like a $60000 saving from just one person.

However, no study like this would ever happen. That's because the CTF is just another corporate propaganda mouthpiece trying to pass itself off as a grass roots organization. They exist only to attack the public service.

So you're saying that the collective bargaining agents suck, and that union employees are brain dead morons for leaving $60,000 on the table when they retire??

"...a study on how much sick leave is not used and how the taxpayer..." benefits? Are you serious? Choose an arbitrary amount, any amount, and it'll get used and absued. Just because there are some honest public 'servants' does not mean that there is not a problem. In the last year I have used one sick day for a migraine. In my entire life I've used about 10 sick days, all from migraines.
What's the difference here? I'm self-employed. There's no free ride if I don't work. Bottom line; end of story.

For the record, they should remove 'mental health days' too.

I'm with lberia on this one. It's not like anything useful is being lost by them taking an extra couple of weeks off - this is the public service after all. CTF (us taxpayers) would be much better off focusing on reducing the size of the public service.

''In 2005-06, absenteeism in government departments cost taxpayers an estimated $20 million in lost productivity. The survey also found absenteeism cost crown corporations another $14 million.''

Is that all? When the cost to taxpayers that year to subsidize the squeaky wheel of agriculture was $400 million plus, $34 million is chump change.

Your 'action plan' makes perfect sense on so many fronts, but because of that it won't work within the PS Cult. The 'Ron Stewart Benefits Plan' is much more desirable than yours.

Are civil servants really that ill?
October 12, 2006
Quebec civil servants took an average of 14.14 sick days in 2005, according to a confidential Treasury Board document that found its way to the Journal de Montreal...
tinyurl.com/y9h97t

Ontario to tackle teacher sick days
July 14, 2006
TORONTO - The soaring cost of teacher absenteeism in Ontario has prompted the province's Education Ministry to investigate why teachers last year on average missed 12 days over the course of the 10-month school year...
tinyurl.com/yfw68a

'Whoais Teacher': Illnesses don't fall just on holidays
tinyurl.com/yjp3j5

We must love work -- we're taking less time off
Canadians to take just 19 vacation days in '06, while French get 39
...Public servants and teachers were the professionals most likely to take time off...
tinyurl.com/ych7x3

Public Service Commission of Canada
General Competency Test Level 1 Practice Test
Question 16
As the finance clerk for your division, you must obtain the signature of your supervisor on all sick leave forms so that employees are paid for their sick days.....blah, blah, blah, blah..... Your supervisor wishes to emphasize that:
Sick leave is a privilege, not a right....Ha, Ha, Ha..
www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/ppc/gct1_test_e.htm

...One in four workers said they consider their sick days to be equivalent to vacation days and treat them as such...

Doubt there are any self-employed included in the 'one in four'

More sick day excuses:

1) Employee was poisoned by his mother-in-law.
2) A buffalo escaped from the game reserve and kept charging the employee every time she tried to go to her car from her house.
3) Employee was feeling all the symptoms of his expecting wife.
4) Employee called from his cell phone, said he was accidentally locked in a restroom stall and no one was around to let him out.
5) Employee broke his leg snowboarding off his roof while drunk.
6) Employee's wife said he couldn't come into work because he had a lot of chores to do around the house.
7) One of the walls in the employee's home fell off the night before.
8) Employee's mother was in jail.
9) A skunk got into the employee's house and sprayed all of his uniforms.
10) Employee had bad hiccups.
11) Employee blew his nose so hard, his back went out.
12) Employee's horses got loose and were running down the highway.
13) Employee was hit by a bus while walking.
14) Employee's dog swallowed her bus pass.
15) Employee was sad.

nbc4.tv/money/10405430/detail.html

I worked in the public health care system for almost 30 years and I used 2 weeks of that time because of an emergency sugery. Individuals like Iberia are a prime example of the mindset in the "Public Service".

They see sick time as an entitlement rather than a mechanism to prevent hardship due to illness(not being able to pay one's bills). In any work place you will see the same individuals abusing their"sick time". You will notice that they never go over the alloted time. They always know exactly how much sick time they have.

These people are stealing from the taxpayers. They put undue stress on their fellow workers who actually show up for work on a regular basis. The last job I had I worked at for 4 years. In that time period 1 of the 3 sick time abusers were always off and at times all three simultaneously.I worked in an area that had no casual staff because of an nationwide shortage of expertise in thia field. I retired 13 years early in a large part due to the pressure caused by this situation. This is another reason there is a shortage in the health care field . This is a double whammy because it's the good workers who leave.

In many government jobs sick time has very little impact because no real work is actually done. In clinical health care this is not the case. The good people retire the first chance they get because the pace you have to work at covering for the chronic sick timeabusers becomes unbearable. You can only work like 3 people for so long before you burn out.

There is also an impact on the patients and families. These selfish individuals never think about these issues.

The Unions make it impossible to deal with this issue. The employer is not allowed to ask why a person is off sick. The sick time abusers don't even have to practice their lies.

One place I worked at had implemented a draw every month for employees who didn't use their sick days that month. The winner would receive $100.00. The Union forced the employer to stop this practice because it "Descriminated against the sick time abusers".

The only way to stop this practice is that all employees have to have a letter from their Doctor . The note will have to cost a signifigant amount of money. Unfortunatly this practice punishes people who are genuinely ill but in my mind they are in the minority.This would only take effect after you have taken 3 sick days. This allows the non sick time abusers plenty of time. the sick time abusers would not take time off if it cost them money.

If you were to examine the records you would see that the sick time abusers use every second they are "entitled" to. The good employees use squat. This is how you get an average of 9. Good employees 1 /year. Sick time abuser 17/year.

Welcome back from your stress leave Maryjane. I guess all that obsessing about farm subsidies must have pushed you over the edge.

For those too thick to understand after only one time, here it is again:

Sick leave credit is in lieu of getting paid a higher hourly rate. The employer agrees to this, therefore the employer should also take this into account when managing their human resources. It does not cost anything because it is already budgeted for.

ruralroots writes:
"I retired 13 years early in a large part due to the pressure caused by this situation..."

Well, then I guess you outsmarted yourself. Perhaps if you took a few of the sick days that you were ENTITLED to, you could have stuck around longer. So, did you get paid out for your unused sick time, or did they just give you a medal?

After the last time the CTF released similar information a manager of a crown corp announced that before sick time was approved a note from a doctor was manditory. The next day a sickee presented an doctors note requesting stress leave because he was being picked on.
Ruralroots has it right the sick pay should not cut in until the third day.
By the way lberia maybe you should join the CTF like I did 12 years ago and they wouldn't pick on you. If you add an S to your moniker you would feel right at home

"....Sick leave credit is in lieu of getting paid a higher hourly rate..."

And what sickness are you suffering from? And exactly what's the hourly rate for management staff?

In 2005-06, absenteeism in government departments cost taxpayers an estimated $20 million in lost productivity.

Things sure are different in Canada. Here in the US, that would contribute to productivity, because there would be fewer government employees to get in the way of those of us who create wealth.

Well, don't a feel bad for using my sick time now! As a employee in the public sector who spent several days off without a doctors note (gasp!) at home throwing up, I should be ashamed of myself.

Some people do get sick and I would say a mjority of them are honest about it. However, sick leave falls under the category of moral hazard. There is basically not much you can do about it.

In Saskatchewan where we have harsh weather so I would make an uneducated guess that more people get sick here. I am going to get balsted for that!?

Individuals like Iberia are pretty fightening. This has become the common mindset within the ranks of the unions. That sick time is actually part of your pay. I think if this was the case most workers would chose higher pay with no sick time. Why should good employees subsidize the sick timee abusers?

Only in this group is a reliable employee a dupe. I wish Iberia"s employer could see how this individual thinks. It might give them some insight.

The only voices of liberal support are gubmint employees; maybe if you went to bed before 2:38 in the AM you could get your lazy ass out of bed and "earn" your entitlement.

Thanks to Maryjane and iberia for backing up my theory that "there are no liberals", just entitled trough suckers trying to justify their grubby parkingspot.

Thanks ruralroots. I wanted to respond to Iberia's mindset, but couldn't put it into words. You have done it for me. Sick days in lieu of higher pay, unbelievable. If true, that would be a prime example of smoke and mirror accounting.

I worked for a company that required a doctor's note for 3 or more days sick leave.

Guess what? Lots of people left around noon on day 1, spent days 2 & 3 off sick and were miracuously recovered on day 6 because, wonder of wonders, day 1 was usually a Wednesday.

The first day, maybe the first two, should be either without pay or the employees vacation time. Think of it as a deductible.

"It does not cost anything because it is already budgeted for"
Iberia
That's a really scary sickness you've contracted. How much time off from the Ministry of Wealthier Liberals are you allowed for being posessed by the spirit of Karl Marx, anyways ?

"It does not cost anything because it is already budgeted for"

I missed that pearl. Straight from my pocket to Iberia's. Budgets in the real world are guidelines, with a high prioroty set on attaining beating the number in a positive manner. In the bizarro universe it means using up budgetd funds to prevent a reduction in funding in the next fiscal year and no priority in being fiscally responsible to the taxpayer.

and having gubmint employees (notice i said employee and not worker, i have never met a gubmint employee that actually works)in a union, what a crime against every taxpayer in the country.

I know an employee of the City of Calgary who said he was good to take time off cause "he still had some sick days left." He seemed to assume that sick days were a kind of holiday owed to him.

This attitude came as a shock to many of us private-sector employees, many of whom have not taken a sick day in years, and who would only take a sick day if we were truly sick.

This is a good reason to privatize of as many government services as possible.

no pay for the first 3 days then a doctors note after for sick pay is what I used to get. Now self employed and if I do not work I do not get pay. a few years ago here in BC when H E U was on strike i went on their web site and found a copy of their old contract. 18 sick days per year and 4 weeks holidays after 1 year employment, 12 weeks after 20 years. I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper pointing this out and H E U quickly removed the contract from their web site

Well, as a Navy Blue Conservative, I believe is sick days. I would rather have ill people at home, than coughing all over me at work. I would not want to have some bank teller, Doctor, Nurse, Food server sick while meeting or serving me either.

Stress Leave is valid if approved by a Dr. Every time I have seen it used, it is always a requirement to have a Dr's note. Stress leave payments generally comes from Short Term Disability plans which Employee's pay for them selves as part of their Health benefits package. Yes some companies/Gov’ts contributes to that plan as well, but that is each company’s decision to support or not to support.

Is there abuse, probably. But to paint everyone who has access to sick leave with pay as crooked is like saying Conservatives are all racist.

To many people have too big of a paint brush.

And hey, if I pay for access to those benefits, then you have no rights to tell me I can’t have them.

Alan, you are full of crap. 12 weeks holidays...3 months a year off. Give your head a shake.

Iberia illustrates succinctly why I hate leftards and other liberals.

Sick days are there to be used like insurance - not additional vacation. Just because the public "service" can't attract anyone but deadbeats and thus has to "budget" for more time off than every other area doesn't make it right. It means the government needs to start negotiating union contracts with the public's interests pre-eminent instead of giving in the union's lowest common denominator.

If you see a group of people who are using more sick days than other groups, it is reasonable to assume they're deadbeats gaming the system.

I know a welfare caseworker who's union negotiated 1 sick day per month. She is sick one day a month. Every month. I can't stand the sight of her.

Union hacks are sponges off the rest of us. Leaches and deadbeats and thieves.

I don't mind people staying home when they're sick - I do. But if you're not sick, you get your lazy ass to work. If you use your "sick days" when you aren't sick, you should be fired for cause and be ineligible to collect EI or any other dole or handouts.

It all comes down to honesty--to yourself and your boss, if you are not self employed. If you are truly ill, you should stay home and rest if at all possible. Unfortunately, there always seems to be one or two people in your office/workplace that abuses this. One girl in our office called in sick 4 times in the past month. If it isn't her back, it's a migraine..I think it is more psychological than anything. Other than that, she is a good employee so firing her is not an option.

It figures that most of the justifiers of sick leave are lefties.

Iberia says"It does not cost anything because it is already bugeted for."

What a moronic statement!

It shows the typical lack of understanding by the union types about the way business runs.

Sick leave is not an entitlement(Liberals favorite word)and should be treated like an insurance policy.

If you must use it,it's there for you.Otherwise,get off your ass and go to work!

The $20,000,000 in "lost productivity" assumes that they were doing real, productive work in the first place. I've got some relatives who are government employees, and from what I've heard, this is a pretty huge assumption. Especially because the people who will abuse sick day privileges are not usually the most productive employees.

My company got rid of the two weeks (10 days) of sick pay per year, and replaced it with 6 days of flexible time off that we can use as sick days, vacation days, or cash out. Any sick time required after the six days came out of your vacation time, or went unpaid. The only people who complained where those who regularly used every single sick day every year. This completely eliminates the "who owns sick days" argument.

As an added bonus, people coming to work sick, and infecting everyone else was also reduced, because the (good) employees didn't feel like they were going to be "ripping off" the company by staying home.

Iberia: Shouldn't you be working? Or are you on sick leave?

Saskatchewan Government Worker's Schedule

Vacation 15 days off(20 or more for senior employees)
Every 3rd Friday 17 days off
Stat holidays 11 days off
Sick leave 15 days off

Total 58 days off.An average of 5 per month!

Sorry to inconvenience you by asking you to come to work an average of 16 days per month!

Work is so hard on the health of Sask. Gov't employees that the NDP have increased the number of Gov't employees by about 10,000 in the past 6 years. No wonder 18,000 of Sask. working educated have fled to Alta. and BC. Who the hell wants to keep paying for years of Socialism!

My ex works for Sask. Social Services as a probation officer with Young Offenders. What a holiday! He was pro gov't largesse, and I was pro earn your pay through merit and hard-work. Needless to say, the couch potato, entitlement attitude just got too nauseating to stomach!

He worked on average about 4-5 hours per day. Lunch was 2 hours so he could eat and then play racketball or workout with other gov't employees at the YMCA. Coffee breaks were at least an hour each morning and afternoon. You know the stress of giving all those young offenders a slap on the wrist is sooooo taxing to ones health! Did I mention the gov't car?

Then, as a loyal union employee, he got an EDO every third Friday. Add in all the "make work" committees he sat on and all the "conferencing", and you can add on another 10-20 days of no work per year. He had enough paid sick days banked that he could retire 3 years early and still receive his full salary. Then off to a full pension gratis of Sask. taxpayers.

In the huge ice storms in Ont. and Quebec a few years ago. 40,000 gov't employees were unable to get to work for several days. Did anyone notice? Did anyone care?

Unions are unnecessary and a huge financial drain on the economy. The advent of stricter law and Labour Standards regulations has made unionization obsolete.

If these gov't workers find their simple jobs too hard to deal with, then fire tham all. I'm sure we won't miss them.

EDO's are for a wonderful conservative program of expecting people to work 40 hours a week and paying them for 36.5 ( or something like that). Instead of working 5, 7 hour hours days they work 9, 8 hours days in the 10 day work week or somthing like that. Allowed wages to be flatlined for 5 years to off set inflationary increases.

EDO's are not given away days. They are earned byt he person working. Funny how quite a few ununionezed Banks and Insurance compaines do this as well for their employee's. Stupid Corporate canada given away free days like that. if it wasn't for the conservatives people would work a full 40 hour work week....

Hahaha.

Looks like private enterprise in the US could use iberia’s help!

“RIVERWOODS, Illinois -A survey by U.S. tax and business law information and software provider C-C-H says 56 per cent of employers now report that "presenteeism,'' when sick employees show up for work, is a problem for them.

The survey also finds that more employers are taking steps to help overcome the rise in ''presenteeism.''

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061130/employee_work_061130/20061130?hub=Health

Regardless of whether the 23% figure only adds up to a couple of days or not, the difference is still significant and demonstrable. Numbers like this are telling you a story and we need to listen.

Sick days which are carried forward are viewed as vacation by too many employees and they become another entitlement. Further, the cost is magnified where an employer then needs to call in and pay for replacement employees. The original purpose of sick days was for......wait for it.......SICKNESS!! not for additional vacation, etc. There still is a valid purpose for them, but, as always, there are those who will abuse such privileges. Don't make the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Just as with unions, there was a time when employers routinely had more power than employees and could use it to their advantage. Now, the pendulum seems to have swung too far in the other direction. I have worked in both union and non-union situations. The union situations could become a major pain in the ass and get in the way of getting anything useful done, or just being able to have a rational conversation with staff. On the other hand, I have also seen non-union situations where employers could treat employees unfairly and get away with it.

As with so many other things, there needs to be some balance between employee rights and getting the job done. When you go too far either way, bad stuff happens. We have problems with productivity in this country that we need to address as well and sticking our heads in the sand about it will not help.

Info guy,

5 days times 7 hours is a 35 hour week, not 40...

9 days times 8 hours is 72 hours bi-weekly or 36 per week, not 40...

I guess the mathematically illiterate tend to be liberals...

The work week is based on 8 hour days. 7 hours working, two 15 minute breaks (paid) and 1/2 hour lunch (unpaid.) This makes the average salaried work week 37.5 hours paid hours.

In the private sector, you have businesses who allow you to compress the work week so long as it averages out the same number of hours worked.

Hey Warwick, you are actually at work 9 hours in a day. 8 working, 1 hour lunch. Of course you only get paid for the 8 hours.

Or 9 hours at work 8 working 30 minute lunch and two 15 minute coffee breaks.

Or my work 8 hours total, 6.5 working and 1 hour lunch and 2 15 minute coffee breaks.

Of course my wage is 80% the corporate world wages per day as well.

I guess you missed the point about being EARNED which you choose to ignore. It is amazing how the uninformed want to criticize unimportant facts.

Oh yea sorry for the math, each company does the process different with different hours. Some do it over 3 weeks, some do it over 2 weeks, some even over a month.

Oh, I don’t want people taking sick days for the hell of it either. But I won’t make inaccurate statements about earned days off.

Info

Earned days would be based on the theory that the employee was actually working for those hours.

Most of the institutions that offer" earned days off" are well known for being underworked and overstaffed.

The anti EDO argument is fine but at least get the facts straight. The experience I have with them through my wife in both the private sector (national insurance company)and federal government is that the employee works a slightly longer day for the 9 days previous to the EDO. The employee banks that time to take the day off once every two weeks. As well the company splits the days so that no more than 25% of employeees can be off on a given day.
As for sick days, people who abuse the system should be dealt with severly. However I would prefer people stay home than hacking all over the office.

Kate said: I think everyone should take the kind of stress leave I and other self-employed do. The longer I'm not working, the more the stress.

So true. Institutions change a person's brain and people quickly forget how it on the other side. Subs are kind of like contractors within the machine so I watch it all with a bit of fascination.

Sick days have become a defeatest concept to begin with. If you're sick, you're sick. If you're sick suspiciously often your employer should address it as a problem. Granting 'x' number of days per month or year seems like a way to make it so managers don't have to discern whether or not they are getting snowed. Sick? Not sick? Don't care...until day x+1.

"Public servants don't do any work," the right-whinners say...except when there's a lock out or strike and garbage isn't being picked up, busses aren't running or mail isn't being delivered. Then the cry is "fire them all" or "ban the union." Why? Right-whinners should be happy because (according to their logic) money isn't being spent on "useless" public servants at such times.

Similarly, these same whinners complain that unionized workers have benefits that they don't have as self-employed or non-unionized workers. Well, it's still a free country, so find a better job if you are unhappy, and quit whinning that another group negotiated a better deal than you. After all, isn't the cornerstone of free enterprise getting the best deal you can?

Want something real to complain about? Banks are making record profits (BMO made $2.7 billion this year) yet they are closing branches and charging you fees for using you own money. Oh, I forgot...banks are ok because they are non-unionized.

I just have to jump into this one. I've worked in a workplace (taxpayer funded) and saw much abuse of "sick time" by those who feel it is an entitlement. Truth be known, sick leave is more of an insurance policy for the employee in the event they do become ill.

Fast forward to my present place of employment. They too had holiday and sick time and people who took advantage of the latter as a "God given right". As with a lot of organizations, our employer went to a Paid Time Off (PTO) system in order to reduce the abuse of the system. By using the PTO system an employee gets more PTO days than they would normally get vacation time but less than vacation + sick. i.e. 15 days vacation + 12 days sick was changed into 20 days PTO. If you call in sick you take your PTO day or two first. So if you don't call in sick, you actually get more days off. There is also the point that after two PTO days are used up as sick and you have a doctor's note, they stop using your PTO and start using from a real sick time bank. also, if you end up directly in the hospital (i.e.accident) then no PTOs are used.
The result of this was increased attendance/productivity and fewer end of the month or friday long weekend flu cases. Of course there was opposition but the best excuses they could come up with was "but little johnny is home from school and I'll have to get a babysitter".

This system has been very enlightening to see in action. It is also fairer for those who hardly ever call in sick but had to take up the slack for the "entitlees" under the old system.

"Oh, I forgot...banks are ok because they are non-unionized"

'kin eh!

Hell hath no fury like a union apologist scorned.

Banks are making record profits (BMO made $2.7 billion this year)

As a shareholder, through both mutual funds and company pension plan, all I can say is woo-hoo, bring it on! I'm not going to retire in style investing in loser companies.

The EDO thing is a joke. In the unionized work places I have been employed in the last 30-60 or longer minutes was spent visiting, doing personal stuff or playing computer games at the end of the day. I once supervised an employee that felt her work day ended at 2:30 even though she was being paid to work until 4:30.

I had an unpleasant confrontation with her on a particularly busy day. I needed her to do some work after 2:30 . She went running to the manager(who had hired this woman for certain attribute that did not include intelligence or a work ethic). After a lenthy conversation with the manager she said indignantly to quote"I'll even work until 4:30 if I have too". This is the prevalent attitude in the Health care system.

The EDO system just means that these individuals visit for 15-30 minutes more per day. I'm sure if the statistics are analyzed this concept does not give value for money in the public sector.

This EDO sytem just makes life very difficult for Physicians and patients. You don't dare get sick on a Thurday night and need urgent testing(MRI,CT,EEG,Ultrasound, Nuclear medicine scan)because staffing in most areas are down at least 30% on Fridays. Patient care gets compromised on a regular basis.

The private sector is probably a bit different . If a system does prove to be at least as good as what it is replacing it won't last.

Government employment should be at MINIMUM WAGE only. Lets see if all the leeches stay around after that gets started.

Iberia you are the one who is full of it. This was their posted contract. And by the why they got another week every 5 years after 20. Thankfully the NDP got kicked out and the Prov. Liberals tore up their contract. And I do have a big problem with over paid civil nonproductive civil servants and as a tax payer I have a right to be. What goes on in the private sector unions I don’t give a damn.

Iberia:

Want something real to complain about? Banks are making record profits (BMO made $2.7 billion this year) yet they are closing branches and charging you fees for using you own money.

Here are your options:

#1 Complain about bank profits, but don't do anything about it.

#2 Use alternatives to the big 5 banks such as finance companies, credit unions, ING, etc.

#3 Buy bank stocks.

You chose door #1, I guess. Not the most admirable decision.