Comment on Paid Leave Olympics
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months agoHow does infinite sick leave work?
In Australia an employer pays 12 or so days a year for personal leave, (+ 12 public holidays + 20 days annual leave).
Any additional sick leave is unpaid.
An employer couldn’t really be expected to pay sick leave indefinitely. Is it paid by some kind of insurance or social security?
You can claim a govt pension for illness. It’s difficult to qualify long term though.
Let’s say I get sick
Day 1: 0% pay Day 2-14: 80% pay from my employer Day 15-90: “barely” 80% from Försäkringskassan, up to a relatively low ceiling (disfavours those with high incomes, doesn’t really affect the common worker). With a collective agreement from a union you could also get an additional 10-15%(?) from your employer Day 90-: pretty much the same, the 10% from the employer is replaced by insurance instead. If you’re sick this long it’ll be a bit of a bureaucratic PITA
In Belgium There’s a social security system that pays your wage when you’re sick up a certain maximum. The first month(4 weeks) you get sick is fully paid by the employer. After that you get paid by social security for 60% of your wage up until a certain maximum.
If you are absent from work for 8 months ( cancer, surgery, burn out, … ) you would be paid for every day you are absent, albeit less after a month.
While sick you are also protected from being fired. So employers can’t fire you because you’re out fighting cancer. It is mostly adhered to. If an employer would fire somebody who got cancer or because they got a burn-out/depression I’d probably find a different employer.
It’s a good system, but with its own challenges ( abuse ). I honestly can’t imagine having a fixed amount of paid sick days.
your employer can always “challenge” your sickness by sending a company physician, which they’d have to pay for. Some companies do it per definition, others never, some only when they suspect abuse.
How does infinite sick leave work?
At one of my previous jobs (in the US) we had unlimited Paid Time Off. In practice, you’re still under the same pressure to get shit done or get canned so you don’t really take any more time off than you would have otherwise. And when you’re eventually canned anyway in order to boost the stock price, you don’t have any accrued time off that has to be paid out in a lump sum.
Yeah US style unlimited PTO is a joke, it was so transparent what it was really trying to achieve when my American colleagues got it at my old job.
Krzd@lemmy.world 3 months ago
In Germany your employer has to pay for all sick leave up to continuous 6 weeks. After that insurance pays you 60% of your last paycheck. There are a lot of exceptions, for example if it’s a work related accident your employer has to pay 100% of your last paycheck indefinitely until you go into early/disability retirement.
victorz@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Oh shit. Somebody quick come pour that vat of frying oil over me so I can live my best life.