Denied sickness leave

[ImagineRainbows]

Posting for my partner, can anyone tell me where she stands legally please.

This year she had had:

3 weeks sick leave in one block following a car accident and injury. Doctors note provided for this.

1 week bereavement leave

3 days, 3 separate occasions, emergency dependants leave to deal with childcare issues

Together this sounds a lot but separately it’s not excessive to have had 1 sickness absence. These are all being lumped together and she has had a letter stating she is not to take any more leave.

Today she had a dental emergency at work (abscess ruptured) and had to leave to attend an emergency dentist appointment as she was in excruciating pain and could not talk (customer facing role).

She has now been told that she must take this as unpaid leave and make up the hours. However her contract gives her 4 weeks sickness pay at full pay and she has not used this.

The owner is stating that as she was paid for the bereavement leave and 2 days of the emergency dependants leave when they don’t have to this has reduced her sickness leave entitlement.

My thoughts are while they don’t have to pay the other leave the fact that in the past they have chosen to does not effect her sickness pay and she is still entitled to 4 weeks full pay as contracted. Additionally by refusing her sickness leave today they are treating her unfairly for taking emergency dependants leave which is also against the law to do.

Can anyone advise how this would be seen legally?

@flowery err yes because not off for a car accident now is she ?
It's unpaid leave for a dental appointment .

Sigh. Yes I know that, but the reason she's used 3 weeks sick pay already is because of a car accident.

This is not someone who is expecting anything over and above what her employer normally provides, and is contractually obliged to provide.

This is not someone who is swinging the lead or who has a pattern of problem sickness absence, assuming we take the OP as read.

Why are people trying to excuse her employer and encouraging her to forfeit her contractual entitlement to be 'fair' to them?

Surely she is only entitled to 3/5 of whatever the sickness allowance is
Well, d'uh. She also only needs 3/5 to cover her absence - so a "paid week off" for her is three days, not five.
I would get 6 months of full pay so the horror some are feeling over a few weeks seems very removed from my expectations.
A bereavement and a car accident are hardly things that will roll round every year. They could end up losing a good employee over this. I wonder are there are special rules relating to dependent care when that dependent has a disability?

Is this your child too?

She wasn't having a normal dentist appointment! If you'd ever had an abscess you would know she could have been off work sick just with that..

Why are people trying to excuse her employer and encouraging her to forfeit her contractual entitlement to be 'fair' to them?

I think that with the information we have been given, the employer seems to have been "reasonable". The fact is she has had more than 4 weeks worth of "sick pay" if you add all the days off that she has had, in the end it seems irrelevant what the time off was for, it was all paid, so actually you could say she has been treated well by her employers up to this point, and complaining about not getting the right pay for the right thing, and some of that being discretionary too, seems unreasonable to the employer, rather than the other way round.

Arthur it's not just about pay though, OP says they have said she will be disciplined if she takes any more emergency leave - what should she do next time the child is too unwell to leave?

The situation surrounding bereavement leave sounds unusual and complicated to me. It could be fine, it might not be and I don't think any of us on here can properly advise.

However, I'm still not sure she can argue the dentist appointment is part of her sick leave, independent of other periods of absence.
Dentists appointments aren't usually sick leave. Dentist and doctor appointments are unpaid (or time made up) at almost every place I've worked across public and private sector. The exceptions would be hospital referral appointments where often you show a letter and they're paid.

It depends if the contract says 4 weeks at the discretion of management or something similar.

I've give you another perspective, you've already had a good amount paid. I'm an employer and I'm just tightening up on sickness absence we have over 100 employees and last year it cost us about £140,000 although I suspect it's more as some managers haven't been recording or logging it properly. With Brexit and the affect on the economy if we don't start controlling every cost the employees won't have a job to come to.

"The fact is she has had more than 4 weeks worth of "sick pay" if you add all the days off that she has had, in the end it seems irrelevant what the time off was for, it was all paid, so actually you could say she has been treated well by her employers up to this point"

But she hasn't had 4 weeks worth of sick pay. And it isn't irrelevant what the time off was for. She's had 3 weeks of sick pay, and has also separately had a bereavement and a few days emergency leave.

Adding up different leave and off-setting it isn't how it works. Denying someone their contractual entitlement isn't reasonable.

I could possibly see people's point (although legally they'd still be incorrect) if she'd had 3 weeks' worth of Monday morning hangovers and had been paid for that, and the employer was then baulking at paying any more. Or if she was expecting paid bereavement leave for her hamster.

She's taking the piss imo. And it's people that take the piss that spoil it for other people. At my work we used to get paid for our sick days, it was in our contract that it was up to our employers discretion - we always got paid though. 5 years ago it stopped - found out 2 members of staff had more sick days than annual leave the year before so everyone else got punished for it. She's lucky she has it in her contract, what's the likelihood of this perk not being available to future employees
Regardless I don't believe seeing a dentist is classed as sick leave and I would fully expect to make up the time.

My employer would expect parents to split emergency leave for sickness of a dependent. If your wife had already had a lot of sickness and other time off maybe it would have been better for you to take time off for that.

Regardless of what contract says, it's a lot of time to have off in 9 months.

The 4 weeks sickness pay thing would likely refer to 4 consecutive weeks, not the odd few days here and there cumulatively.

Ring Acas.
They will be able to give you a response without any emotion attached!
I'm sorry she has had a bad year .
Hope it improves.

Do you take your turn for time off for emergency leave?

"Regardless of what contract says, it's a lot of time to have off in 9 months."

How do you think that is relevant?

"The 4 weeks sickness pay thing would likely refer to 4 consecutive weeks, not the odd few days here and there cumulatively."

Are you assuming there is contractual provision stating that the 4 weeks' sick pay is only payable if the whole absence is in one chunk? That's a very odd assumption to make, and will not be the case I am sure. OPs partner is perfectly entitled to take the contractual entitlement as being exactly what it says it is, rather than assuming the employer wants to retain some discretion. They opted not to put discretion into the contract/policy.

I'm guessing some of the people on this thread are the same people who would tell someone who has just discovered they are pregnant that they should withdraw from a job offer to be 'fair' to the employer.

Usually any sick leave entitlement is applied to a 12 month period from the date of absence - so the OP has had 3 weeks this year, but if she had time off within the last 12 months of that time it may count too.

It does depend on what the contract/terms and conditions says though.

How is the employer proposing to judge about the emergency leave though - is there another parent available to look after the child?

I would assume since a 17 year old has been put forward as a suggestion for childcare that the OP is for some reason not available/suitable for childcare.
Flowery if you have a fanclub I would like to join it.

What shocks me is that so many people seem to be promoting rush to the bottom in terms of terms and conditions in the workplace!

Why can't we raise the bar and expect all employees to have appropriate rights? It shouldn't be the case that just because you don't get X that anyone who has it in their contract shouldn't get it either.

Ultimately none of us can advise properly on here without knowing loads more than the OP Should share on here, but some of these responses are quite odd.

Wow. Actually astonished at the lack of empathy on here.

Nobody chooses to be in a car accident, lose a member of family, have a tooth abscess or emergency dependant leave so give her a break.

What this does highlight is the need for employers to treat their staff like human beings!

As an employer, I have made it very clear in our employee handbook and contracts what working rights are. There should be no grey areas. However if someone is genuinely struggling we can offer someone a day off sick at our discretion. Generally our staff are on SSP only.
If one member of staff takes two weeks off work it would cost us £3,000 + in order to offer paid sick leave plus pay for a locum to cover. That's quite a sizeable amount of extra cash we need to find.
Truthfully most employers will think of their business first before personal circumstances.

I would imagine paying 1 employee for bereavement leave and making the other take it as unpaid wouldn’t be legal
You're imagining wrong. What is at the discretion of the manager is exactly that. It means assume you are not entitled to pay leave but in some circumstances, they can agree to pay.

Your sense of entitlement is what makes manager unwilling to offer flexible working. They were being very kind to allow 3 days bereavement that meant she could have 10 days without working, they didn't need to do that, and considering she'd had 3 weeks off sick already, showed they are a caring organisation.

Yet your wife felt entitled to more. It sounds like the emergency days were paid. 3 days in less than a year considering she only works 3 days IS a lot. How much into her shift did she leave to go to the dentist? Did she leave half way or less but didn't come back?

It sounds like they are indeed fed up with her sense of entitlement to pay and unpaid leave that has come out of them being kind. She needs to revise her attitude to work or indeed, consider whether working is the right thing for her and your family.

How is three days for a bloody bereavement very kind ? It's like a Dickens story in here tonight.
Ffs.