The Law Regarding Sicklines
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I'm a bit confused and need some advice; I've tried Google haven't yet found anything of use.
My boyfriend works as a bus driver. His mother was diagnosed with a brain tumour about six months ago and now we've just been told by doctors that she's unlikely to last more than a few days. She's at home and we've all got sick lines from the doctor and stopped going into work as of today so that we can spend the last few days with her.
My boyfriend phoned his work today to inform them that he'd bring in his sick line tomorrow only to be told that if the reason he wants time off is because of stress then he wont get it because it's company policy that they don't accept sicklines where the reason is stress, they don't see that as a valid reason. They said he can't have any time off unless they are able to swap his holidays but he doesn't have very many holidays left because most of them were used up last autumn in a holiday that was booked before his mum got ill. He's only entitled to three days bereavement leave and that won't kick in until after she has died anyway.
What to do? I was under the impression that a medical certificate from a doctor was like a legal document. Are they allowed to refuse to accept one because they don't like the reason?
My boyfriend works as a bus driver. His mother was diagnosed with a brain tumour about six months ago and now we've just been told by doctors that she's unlikely to last more than a few days. She's at home and we've all got sick lines from the doctor and stopped going into work as of today so that we can spend the last few days with her.
My boyfriend phoned his work today to inform them that he'd bring in his sick line tomorrow only to be told that if the reason he wants time off is because of stress then he wont get it because it's company policy that they don't accept sicklines where the reason is stress, they don't see that as a valid reason. They said he can't have any time off unless they are able to swap his holidays but he doesn't have very many holidays left because most of them were used up last autumn in a holiday that was booked before his mum got ill. He's only entitled to three days bereavement leave and that won't kick in until after she has died anyway.
What to do? I was under the impression that a medical certificate from a doctor was like a legal document. Are they allowed to refuse to accept one because they don't like the reason?
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But his job is driving buses and he's not currently safe to do that because of the stress he is suffering from. Stress is an illness in itself.
All the time they offer for emergencies is three days bereavement and that's it. No other time. They are extremely strict and not even remotely compassionate.
Company sick pay (if he gets paid it) is discretionary, so the worst case scenario would be that he would only get paid SSP - and if they were really shitty, they 'could' perhaps look toward a disciplinary hearing for attendance, but even then his attendance before all this would have to have been pretty poor.
My advice would be to take the time off, send the sick line (and any subsequent ones) in as soon as you can, and then deal with HR or another manager. You have got enough on your plate at the moment without having to deal with some insensitive nonce.
If your boyfriend's medical certificate is from a Doctor and not a self-cert, then yes I am pretty sure they will have to accept it. I would imagine there would be potential insurance problems otherwise.
Might be worth pointing out to whoever he calls in HR next time that this is a signed doctors note.
Excuse me? The point was that he doesn't have enough holidays to cover the period of time before her death AND the period of time after. He only has maybe two days left, he could take them now and then be expected to return to work a complete mess for the remaining few days of her life.
Thanks. That's pretty much our conclusion, there doesn't seem to be anything else we can do. He's already spoken to a couple of head guys in his depot and one of them became quite intimidating until my boyfriend said that he didn't like threatening behaviour, then the guy backed down.
We already know that he'll only get paid something like 20% of his normal wage if he gets sick pay. But it'd be an improvement on nothing. Even if he got unpaid leave, we'd accept that because at least at the end of it we would know he'd have his job to return to. But right no they're acting like if he takes any time off now then he'll be at risk of losing his job.
He was already disciplined once because he phoned in and said he couldnt make his shift. He gave fourteen hours notice and it was the day his mum became ill and was rushed to A&E and diagnosed but he still got disciplined for it
Could he get advice from his union?
Night my Mother died I got 3 hours off work - next day I got the morning off to collect her things & make phone calls.
Fitted in registering death, cancelling pension etc with lunch hours.
Day of funeral got another 3 hours off.
I work for a small company, couldn't get any cover for more time off.
Sometimes things don't work out as you would like them to.
Almost certainly, especially given his profession. If a medically qualified person has declared a staff member as unfit for work, then they are unfit for work - end of. Ultimately, the individual could still be disciplined for poor attendance (which would be incredibly insensitive in the OP's circumstances), but no manager can force an employee back to work against doctors advice, and in fact any manager worth his salt would positively disallow anyone to work that is currently under a doctors cert.