How sick?

“U iva, ghada ncempel ‘sick’ (“tomorrow I’ll take a sickie”).

Who, among us, has not done this? Well, to be fair, some tend to do it far more than others - taking a sick day for the hell of it and not because they are really sick. 

We have all come across the office sickie pros, who start feigning an alarming cough around Thursday afternoon, proclaiming loudly to anyone within earshot how unwell they are feeling and how they do not know if they will make it through the rest of the day. Knowing smiles all around as everyone takes bets on receiving the Friday morning phone call, “X has called in sick”. Surprise, surprise, it’s always on a Friday.

Then there are the Monday morning sickies, which are favoured by the PV and clubbing generation. After all, it’s not easy to face work when you have crawled home at around 6am, head throbbing and stomach heaving with enough alcohol to send any breathalyzer test into instantaneous combustion. Hold on, what am I on about? “Breathalyzer test”: who are we kidding huh?

But, I digress; this is about the abuse of sick leave, an important issue that needs to be addressed seriously in order to save on the ever-escalating costs for employers, whether in private enterprise or the public service. Costs which are then, inevitably, passed on to consumers and taxpayers. 

Every time someone calls in sick fraudulently, just because they feel like having a duvet day, someone, somewhere is paying the price; but this kind of cause-and-effect connection does not seem to occur to the sickie abusers. 

There are those who genuinely believe that the sick leave entitlement, which Malta so generously gives to every employee, is simply an extension of their vacation leave. So they spread them out carefully, with the precision of a general mapping his wartime strategy as they calculate exactly how they can stretch their sick days in order to take them all by the end of the calendar year.  

In Maltese the expression is even more telling “kollha nehodhomlu”, which roughly translates to “I’ll take them all from him”, with  the ‘him’ in question referring to The Man - the Big Boss, whether it’s a private company or better still, the government when one is employed with the civil service.

It’s considered as a way of “getting back” and sticking it to the person/entity that is employing you; a mentality I have never quite understood or could ever relate to. (Frankly if you loathe your employer so much it would be best for your emotional well-being to simply find another job). 

Like most social safety nets that were put in place in order to safeguard the previously exploited worker, sick leave has become one of those welfare policies that was originally based on an excellent and very necessary premise but which has been tainted by those who are always figuring out ways to cheat the system.

So when the Malta Employers’ Association came out with their statement this week about sick leave abuse, I was nodding in agreement until my nodding screeched to a halt on reading what they are describing as examples of “self-inflicted unfitness for work”: “Workers deemed unfit for work by the doctor as a result of a hangover, cosmetic surgery, a sports injury or sunstrokes should not be entitled to a sick leave” ,

Sports injury? How can one possible equate a broken ankle (for example) with being hungover after a night out on the town? The MEA should be promoting a more active workforce since research shows that people who do some form of exercise tend to be more energetic and perform better in their tasks, which is a plus for the employer. 

Even cosmetic surgery is a dubious example to throw in there; what about reconstructive cosmetic surgery after a mastectomy? It also leads me to wonder just how many people in Malta are going under the knife for a little nip and tuck, and, ahem, enhancements. For the MEA to single it out, it must be more widespread than I thought.  

The problem with the arbitrary list given by the MEA on what it deems as “self-inflicted” is that it is just that: arbitrary. Why sunstroke and not say, food poisoning (after all, you should have known better than to eat from that dodgy snack bar)?  Or falling off a ladder when you are doing home maintenance (you should have called in a professional). Or a heart attack due to morbid obesity (it’s your fault if you overeat).

Even a common cold could be deemed self-inflicted if you are one of those people who never washes their hands or who constantly comes into contact with someone who has germs (you know, such as your kids who themselves bring germs from school).

There is another reason that this list does not make sense and will not work: there are just too many glaring loopholes which the savvy Maltese will undoubtedly get around. Let’s face it, if I know that a sports related injury will not entitle me to sick leave, I will simply say that I sustained the the injury in another way. If I’m hungover, I will say I have gastric flu. I can’t think of a plausible excuse to cover up sunstroke, because the sunburn would give me away, but I’m sure those who are cunning would be able to get around that one as well.

While I can understand that the MEA is doing its best to curb what has always been a very real problem for employers, it has gone to the other extreme with these proposed amendments. It has also opened itself up to ridicule, thus defeating the purpose of having a serious, much-needed discussion on how the country can cut down on the loss of man hours due to sick leave abuse. 

Rather than coming down like a draconian institution that wants to strip all workers of their sick leave entitlement, it should simply focus on those who are blatantly abusing the system.

They should not be that too difficult to trace after all - they are the ones who year in, year out, somehow manage to use up ALL of their sick leave, without fail.