sickness and the sack

[123bernadett]

i work for a well known high st retailer who have a disciplanary structure in place.Everyone feels it is grossly unfair and even if you are covered by doctors letters they can still sack you. You are allowed 8 shifts off sick per 6 months with disciplinaries eventually leading to the sack and with no pay rise if you are at stage 1 or 2. I suppose they can do this legally but it causes untold resentment amongst the genuinelly sick

[bednobs]

hiya 123, what's your question?
if you dont like the terms of your contract, which you have presumably signed up to, you must leave. Some companies dont pay sick pay even

[Ethel]

The realistic alternative is for employers to offer no sick pay, except for the Statutory Sick Pay of around �60 - �70 per week.

I can understand your feelings but I would be very surprised if your employer is not acting within the law.

[THECORBYLOON]

I am a Civil Servant and wir Attendance Management policy means that four days off in any six months or eight in 12 months can attract a warning. It is not the fact that you are sick it is the fact that being absent, even when covered by a certificate, means you are not at work and if you are not at work, you are not efficient.

If everyone were allowed to have months off sick wi no action taken against them, employers would need to employ more folk to cover for all the absences. If you are off long- term sick, why should an employer be forced to carry on employing and paying you whilst either paying for a replacement or asking others to do your share in addition to their own?

[beryllium]

so, if one of your colleagues was diagnosed with eg: cancer and was sick after chemo they will sack them yes?
What does your contract actually say.
and THECORBYLOON would that also be the case in the civil service? if you were diagnosed with something serious? I'm glad I was in a big corporation then when I went into hospital for 6 months.

[buildersmate]

Its to do with capability to do one's job. If one is sick, one cannot do the job. If one keeps being sick, one keeps being incapable of doing the job. After a time, every employer decides enough is enough.
There's nothing new here, only the variation between the way different employers deal with it.