My county employer's reaction to the announcement of H1N1 National Emergency

[Luv2Scrap]

I work for the county PHHS department, and we received this announcement today:

"Sick people must stay home, so they don’t infect others. We don’t want staff to feel like they have to work because they cannot afford to stay home and be in no pay status, because they don’t have any leave time available. On the Committee of the Whole agenda yesterday was a policy allowing for the advancement of 10 days of sick leave for those employees who have no paid leave time, only to be initiated in situations like this: World Health Organization declaration of Pandemic 6; designation of widespread in Minnesota, and MDH opening their emergency operations center in response."

I think this is a good thing - newer employees only get about 2 hours of sick leave per pay period! I have been sick with (probable) H1N1 for 8 days now and I missed 3 days of work. I easily could have stayed home longer!

Is anybody else's employer doing anything different regarding sick leave right now?

 

[emma'smom]

I think they should do something like this for schools too. So many schools place such an emphasis on attendance (and penalize those students who miss school) because it is linked to their funding formulas. I think that any documented absences due to H1NI (so a doctor would have to sign-off to avoid abuse) should not be considered in funding formulas and not be tallied into a student's count of absences for "excessive absence" counts for the year, nor should teachers penalize them for these absences.

This might encourage parents to keep children who are sick home for the recommended number of days instead of rushing them back in as soon as possible and to keep them home if they are exhibiting symptoms.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

That is incredibly generous.

I rememer when I worked--I was hourly and I always had to consider the worth of staying home while my salaried counterparts did not.

DH is essentially a work from home employee, so a policy like that wouldn't be necessary from a germ standpoint.

 

[guilliam]

That would be great!! Unfortunately for me, my employer has decided that instead of the 10 sick days per year (which are unpaid) that we are normally given, starting in 2010 we will only be given 5. Nice time to start that huh!?

 

[Luv2Scrap]

That would be great!! Unfortunately for me, my employer has decided that instead of the 10 sick days per year (which are unpaid) that we are normally given, starting in 2010 we will only be given 5. Nice time to start that huh!?

Wow, that sucks! I'm sorry! Wait - did you say they're UNPAID and you STILL have a limit of 5 in a year? Ok that REALLY sucks!

 

[maroo]

I love my job - but missing for the swine flu really messed me up this year.

I only have 5 days of sick time per year. Anything beyond that goes against vacation.

I had already missed 3 days and when I was out for 3 for the flu, they docked me a vaca day and I had to cancel half of my Disney trip this December.

I was irritated...not that I wanted to be paid for it, but I wanted to be able to go and miss without pay.

Especially since I really was not all that sick...I just stayed away from work to keep from infecting others. I would have gone to work if had been just a cold and I was not spreading germs to everyone.

I don't know what I would do now if I had to do it all over again.

 

[Luv2Scrap]

I love my job - but missing for the swine flu really messed me up this year.

I only have 5 days of sick time per year. Anything beyond that goes against vacation.

I had already missed 3 days and when I was out for 3 for the flu, they docked me a vaca day and I had to cancel half of my Disney trip this December.

I was irritated...not that I wanted to be paid for it, but I wanted to be able to go and miss without pay.

Especially since I really was not all that sick...I just stayed away from work to keep from infecting others. I would have gone to work if had been just a cold and I was not spreading germs to everyone.

I don't know what I would do now if I had to do it all over again.

I too stayed away to keep from infecting others. I could have forced my way through if I really wanted to, but I know my co-workers would have killed me if I had shown up!

I did end up sleeping half the day for those days, so I probably really needed the rest.