Sick Pay Removed

Kiith

Recently we were told that our company were taking away sick pay as a cost saving method. Fair enough, times are tough and all that. But we recently found out that sick pay was only taken away from some of us, in a particular site. My company is an IT contractor, and all of us in this particular site have lost sick pay. Below is a copy of the email that was sent to us, after some of us questioned if that was fair/legal.

However due to the inordinate amount of sick leave on this onsite managed service ***** have been forced to change its policy in order to ensure the business unit remains profitable & will no longer be paying sick leave to any onsite managed service staff.

Management would like to review this decision pending a change in circumstances and will consider the re-introduction of sick leave if the levels return to a sustainable level.

Now it doesnt bother me too much as i'm rarely, if ever, sick. But is it ok for a company to do this?

wmpdd3

Yes, if you take sick pay is a benifit similar to bonas.
It should be stated as such on your contract of referred to as a T&C of employment detailed in your handbook.

If you have the sick pay as a condition of employment on your contract, with no notice that it may be changed as per the company's discretion, they approach HR. But there is no law saying anyone should be paid sick pay by their employer(such the entitlement to holiday pay for example.)

eth0_

It's perfectly legal but obviously very unfair for someone like you who isn't abusing the system.

I was in a similar situation whereby two people on my team consistently took the p*ss regarding sick days - one guy was taking Friday's and Monday's off almost every week. As a result, we were told the company was cutting our sick days to 5 per year. I think the management should have disciplined the two offenders (and given them no more paid sick days) rather than making the entire team suffer.