new employees not entitled to sick pay.

[didds]

I've read elsewhere of somebody whose partner has covid, but still came to work. And turned out to be infected as well, and as a result has infected over half the work force.

A remark was made about that action being a disciplinary surely.

the response was "... new employee who doesn't qualify for sick pay. So, they thought they were making the right choice. "

So this presumably means that in E&W at least such a term of employment is legal? That sick pay can be withheld for new employees (whatever "neew" means in terms of length of "new" etc ) ? Not even SSP ?

For clarity Im interested in the legal position of sick pay being withheld for a period, not whether anyone should have such a rule, or whether people should or should not attend work when living with someone with covid.

didds

[pje16]

not definitive but
must have done some work (section 3)
https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay/print

[pochisoldi]

It's neccessary to differentiate between "Sick Pay" and "Statutory Sick Pay"/SSP.

You have a statutory right to SSP - capped amount, nothing paid for first 3 working days sick etc.
You may or may not have a contractual right to sick pay - usually same as base pay paid in accordance with company policy.

As far as the OP's case is concerned - looks like the employer has learned the hard way, and while the immediate cause of the outbreak was a single employee, the major causal factor of the outbreak was the sick pay policy which encouraged someone to come into work whist infected. A second causal factor may have been the absence of a company policy to mandate and fund the testing of employees who may have or have come into contact with the lurgy.

They might also want to look at their sick pay policy - for example, if they only pay SSP, they might want to consider paying company sick pay at SSP rates from day 1 for COVID cases.

PochiSoldi

[didds]

All agreed PS. Its almost as if nobody that implements such rules doesn't ever consider the potential eventualities.

Or of course they have and accept them...


Even at SSP there's always the possibility the sick person doesn't want to lose three days of any income, or SSP effectively isn't sufficient to attract them to stay off work. And there are places (not necessarily the OP of course) that make taking time of sick an uncomfortable return process...

[gryffron]

For quite a while we had mandatory self isolation of covid carriers. Which would have overridden sick pay concerns. But this ended Feb 22.

I would add to pochisoldi's comment, the fact that SSP is pitiful. 3 waiting days for which you get nothing, then £99pw regardless of your actual salary. It is paid by the govt. Employers pay you then claim it back.
Won't even pay the gas bill

Anything more than SSP is down to your contract. There are no greater statutory requirements than SSP, even after years of employment.

I worked at a place whose contract was 3 waiting days then full pay. But c15% of your wage is a lot to lose. So people came in with terrible colds/flu. Sat slumped across their desk all day doing nothing. And spread it to all the other staff.
I also worked at another, where half the staff skived off "sick" every Thursday cos they'd been out on the razz the previous night.
So employers can lose either way.

Gryff

[servodude]

I would add to pochisoldi's comment, the fact that SSP is pitiful. 3 waiting days for which you get nothing, then £99pw regardless of your actual salary. It is paid by the govt. Employers pay you then claim it back

It's been a while since I was subject to UK regs around this but are employers entitled to withhold (or reduce) pay when employees are sick - to reduce their gap with the SSP?

[gryffron]

It's been a while since I was subject to UK regs around this but are employers entitled to withhold (or reduce) pay when employees are sick - to reduce their gap with the SSP?

SSP is mandatory. Anything beyond SSP is entirely down to the Contract of Employment. So it is a matter of negotiation whether employers top up to full pay, reduced pay, or only SSP. With or without waiting days.

Unless you're on a zero hours contract in which case they just allocate you 0 hours during the period when you're sick, so you don't get paid. Hence why Unions/Labour hate zero hours so much as it by-passes this and several other employment protections, like redundancy. Though in fact, they could just reword the rules. e.g. Maternity pay is the AVERAGE of your last N weeks wages. Sick pay and redundancy could be implemented exactly the same. It's hardly the employers' fault that the regulations are so badly written.

Gryff

[AF62]

I worked at a place whose contract was 3 waiting days then full pay. But c15% of your wage is a lot to lose. So people came in with terrible colds/flu. Sat slumped across their desk all day doing nothing. And spread it to all the other staff.

I worked at a place that gave full sick pay from day one, but people still did this - taking pride in ‘never having had a day sick’.

When they did this they used to really get annoyed that I would ‘upsticks’ and move desks to a different part of the building to avoid being near them, and would refuse to attend any meetings they were also attending, insisting on dialling in from the same building if they were going to be sat there spreading the virus for an hour or so.

These inconsiderate so and so’s didn’t get was that they might be able to shrug off a cold in a couple of days, but for some of with other health issues it might still be impacting us a week or two later.