Browse Sections
Interactive
Popular Sections
Spotty showersNews
| 
Submit Comments
What a sickener!
Emilene White28/12/2005
A CRACKDOWN on sickness at Tameside Council is penalising genuinely ill people, it's claimed.
Public service union Unison says the policy is aggressive and makes people more ill through stress.
But sickness enforcer, Councillor John Taylor, says the policy has slashed the average number of sick days by a third from 12 to eight days per year, and in the last three months has saved the council taxpayer around £85,000.
Key to the policy is a trigger which comes into force when an employee is either off for more than 10 days or on more than three occasions in a year.
When this happens the employee is called in for an interview to justify the time they have had off. If they cannot they are given a warning.
"We've been totally opposed to the triggers since they were brought in two years ago," said Tameside Unison branch secretary Jeanne Smith.
"We never signed up to it because they are not fair on people with genuine illnesses and disabilities, particularly degenerative conditions. We've had cases of people undergoing surgery who've had written warnings and the stress of it all can actually make their problem worse."
The union claims staff have been treated harshly in some departments, notably health and social care where, according to Councillor Taylor, the average sickness rate was 23 days a year, which has now dropped to 13.
Councillor Taylor said: "This is targeted at people who take time off again and again. At the moment there are about 20 who are under a warning - these are the ones who are consistently off year after year. The result has been the equivalent of having an extra 17 people working this last quarter.
"If you take the average salary to be £20,000 that's a saving of £85,000."
"These people cost the council money because agency staff have to be brought in or overtime has to be paid.
"Otherwise the service simply isn't provided.
"When people are off for a genuine reason we give them all the support we can whether that's through counselling or occupational health."
Most recent 2 of 6 user comments
Also Councillor Taylor I would like to point out that sometimes women staff are off sick due to women's operations that lucky men don't have to endure but we are still targeted for the sickness procedures and this is not taken into account.
When staff are off sick it is my experience that genuine sickness (with both GP sicknotes/hospital sicknotes and long term sickness) are still included within the sickness procedure and no support is given to staff. Regardless of previous years services with a low sickness record.
Regarding coming into work when we are sick - some staff are being forced into doing just that because they are being monitored or on warning and by doing that could be putting people we work with at risk (both colleagues and the public) - Are you saying that is right?
All we ask is that genuine sickness is taken into account.
14/01/2006 at 23:07
Got an opinion you want to share?Are you interested in the Olympic Games?
Poll has now ended
| Card | BT Fee |
| Capital One BT Exclusive | 3.0% |
| Virgin Credit Card | 2.98% |
| Barclaycard Platinum 'As on TV' | 2.9% |
| Capital One Platinum | 3.0% |
| Company | Typical APR |
| FirstPlus Exclusive Rate | 6.6% |
| Moneyback Bank | 7.6% |
| Alliance & Leicester | 7.7% |
| Halifax (Semi-exclusive) | 7.7% |
| Bank of Scotland (Semi-exclusive) | 7.7% |
| Barclays | 8.9% |
| Provider | AER* |
|
ICICI BANK HiSAVE Fixed Rate Account |
7.20% |
|
ICICI BANK HiSAVE Fixed Rate Account |
7.00% |
|
ICICI BANK HiSAVE Fixed Rate Account |
7.00% |
|
COVENTRY BS CallSave Fixed Bond (104) 31.08.2009 |
6.80% |
|
ARRAY(0x14c9f3b4) 6 Month Fixed Rate Savings Account |
6.60% |
23/07/2007 at 14:03