Sickness

woodzie

I had been off work sick for 2 weeks with a chest infection after christmas. I have never been off work sick before previous to that. I have asthma. However in a meeting last week my manager brought up that he didnt think I was up for the job due to the fact I was recently sick with a chest infection and asthma. I have only been off work once with sickness since I started in my job.

Is he allowed bring this up even though it was only once. He has been pushing people around lately with his bullying tactics. I just wondering has he any authority to bring up the fact I have asthma and had a chest infection. I had a sick note and it is not a regular occurence.

Eoin

Did he bring it up in front of anyone else, or just in a meeting with you? 2 weeks absence would certainly be worthy of bringing up in a meeting with an employee IMO.

Edit - talking about not being fit for the job because of it, is a completely different story, but as above, I'd be shocked if two weeks sick leave wasn't brought up.

ilovefridays

I would have thought that once you have a doctors cert, that the company have no right to bring it up, as the doctors cert is a legal document and covers you. (i could be wrong but that's what i was always told)

i was out sick with a doctors cert for a chest infection before xmas, when i came back after xmas i handed in my cert and my boss asked me, how i was , but in a friendly way.

Nody

ilovefridays wrote: »

I would have thought that once you have a doctors cert, that the company have no right to bring it up, as the doctors cert is a legal document and covers you. (i could be wrong but that's what i was always told)

Sorry to say but you would be. The company can challenge your doctors cert by asking you to go to a company doctor (at their expense) and has all the right to question someone's ability to do a given work based on their sickness/sickness history (and the right to let someone go because they can no longer perform the job with some other caveats about alterative working methods etc.).

mrsbyrne

ilovefridays wrote: »

I would have thought that once you have a doctors cert, that the company have no right to bring it up, as the doctors cert is a legal document and covers you. (i could be wrong but that's what i was always told)

i was out sick with a doctors cert for a chest infection before xmas, when i came back after xmas i handed in my cert and my boss asked me, how i was , but in a friendly way.

a doctors cert is not a legal document. it is a doctors cert.

gerrycollins

Eoin wrote: »

Did he bring it up in front of anyone else, or just in a meeting with you? 2 weeks absence would certainly be worthy of bringing up in a meeting with an employee IMO.

Edit - talking about not being fit for the job because of it, is a completely different story, but as above, I'd be shocked if two weeks sick leave wasn't brought up.

also what kind of work is it? might a person with asthma suffer doing the job and previous to this they were not aware of your situation?

the only issue (unless previous issues with performance) that should have been discussed at any meeting should have been the 2 weeks sick as a back to work meeting

Eoin

That might be relevant if a company was disputing if an employee was actually sick or not, but that's not the case here. The company has accepted that the employee was sick, and absolutely have a right to determine if it will affect the employee's ability to do the job.

You can't expect to miss 2 weeks of work and not have a follow-up meeting about it. The meeting might not have been done very professionally in this case, but that's a different story.