Man on 15yr sick leave sues for pay rise

[Askil]

How is it possible that IBM have a sick policy allowing staff to be off sick with full pay for 15yrs continuing? just bonkers and a pitiful waste of money and this man has not shame.

man sues

What a cheeky sod! 😆

It is actually 75% of full pay, but still extremely generous. Most employers couldn't afford anything even vaguely like this.

It’s not a work policy. It’s an insurance plan.

Id rather IBM (or their insurers) paid this than us (the tax payer).

What planet is he on? If my employment was terminated on capability grounds, I might if lucky get a few months' salary as a settlement. He's getting paid more on this pension than I am in my full-time job. He should count himself lucky.

As someone else has pointed out it’s an insurance plan, a lot of big employers have them. People on them are usually entitled to an increase in their benefit in line with all company pay reviews etc every year which is bonkers.

I saw this and wondered how he'd got away with it what his illness was.

I have a friend was quite senior management in one of the big software companies. He was diagnosed over 25 years ago with MS and is still paid his full salary under the insurance scheme, meanwhile pension is accruing and he'll soon be able to retire on final salary pension. Very fortunate for him, as he's had to move house to get a bungalow etc which they'd not have afforded otherwise.

My MIL was under one of these policies and she struggled when she hit 60 as that was when the policy ended and then she had to limp along for 6yrs until she got her state pension

I don't see anything wrong with what he has done. We study and work and plan our lives based on a certain income, and if our plan gets derailed by disability, that's what insurance is there for, and the payments should at least increase with the inflation.

This seems like a very good employee benefit - it probably should increase in line with inflation I guess. We can't all stay 100% healthy and long term illness happens.

Anyone can buy income protection policies and critical illness cover. His employer had this a benefit which is unusual these days. However you can choose to buy it if you want it

Didn't know such a policy existed. I don't think many employers offer it.

@Askil my employers offer the policy as part of our compensation and I think it should increase with inflation. I could be wrong about the increase tho!

He also lost his case!

One of the companies I’m on the board of provides this benefit to employees with more than 5 years service, though IIRC it only pays 75% of an individual’s salary and excludes bonus. I assume that it indexes up, but don’t actually know for sure…I will ask next time I’m there!

Oh! I couldn't read the article beyond the first few sentences because it required you to download an app to do so.

In that case how misleading. This just sounds like standard critical illness/ long-term sickness insurance that is sometimes funded by individuals but sometimes by employers then, to pay a percentage of salary after occupational sick pay expires?

In which case it is perfectly reasonable that it continues until retirement unless he becomes well enough to work again. That's the whole point of it, and the cost of it will have been factored into offering him whatever salary package he had there when he started work there before he was ill. How is this a news story?

And yes usually such policies would be uprated with inflation. But that depends on the terms of the insurance and all parties should have been aware of what those are from the outset.

From the way the OP and start of the article that was accessible was phrased it was implied he was receiving sick pay from his employer! Very misleading.