Of sick leave and other matters

The government is proposing to enact measures enabling employees to stay home with their offspring when they are taken ill. The proposal is based on the fact that parents are responsible for their children and if the kids are sick, the parents must stay home to take care of them.

So far this is a logical argument. I have three kids myself and if they are unwell I keep them at home and they need to be cared for either by myself, my husband or a babysitter. Clearly we cannot have sick children going to school and we cannot have sick children at home by themselves either. So there needs to be some form of provision for such emergencies if we want to empower both parents to work.

What is illogical, however, is the solution that the government has come up with. Sick leave is made available to employees to cover them when they are sick. It is not meant to cover other people who are not employed by the company. It absolutely does not follow that because a child is sick then the only solution is to give the parent paid sick leave. In fact the whole idea is nonsensical, unless of course in Malta businesses are considered to be extensions of the social services department and obliged to provide social welfare services - which might very well be the case given the fact that we are one of very few countries where it is the employers who are expected to pay maternity benefits as opposed to the state.

There is no doubt that a solution to the problem needs to be found, but it needs to be one that is fair and does not put all the cost of children's illness upon the employer. After all it is parents who decide to bring children into the world and they should be the ones who cover their expenses, not their hapless employer.

One simple solution that can be rolled out quickly is to enact measures allowing employees to take a number of days of vacation leave without notice. That would mean that if little Johnnie has the sniffles, then daddy would be able to call in and take the day off without any problems. This scheme could be further supplemented by allowing parents who take days off due to their children's illness to make up the time by working extra hours once their child is well, essentially making up the hours without losing vacation leave.

A second solution for longer-term illness would be to create carer's leave. This would be unpaid leave that parents can avail of if their children fall ill and they need to miss work for an extended period of time. The employer would be obliged to meet the request and also to keep the job available for the parent (or carer), while the government would step in to pay the parent, much as would be the case if an employee falls ill for an extended period of time.

The second proposal essentially distributes the cost of the leave in question in a fair manner, with the employer offering job security and peace of mind to the parent, and society pitching in to help the family financially.

It is clear that this proposal needs to be discussed in more detail and the cost implications need to be considered carefully. The impact of such measures will go beyond mere pounds, shillings and pence but will also extend to employment policies. It is all well and good to talk about equality when it comes to recruiting staff, but can you imagine the dilemma faced by an employer when interviewing a parent with four kids? Can you imagine the number of sick days that such an employee would need to cover every sniffle and virus that such a brood would bring home?

I was discussing this proposal with a friend of mine who was very much in favour of the scheme. I asked him if he would be willing to pay his electrician or plumber or handyman if the tradesman in question did not turn up but called him to cancel in order to stay home with a sick child. His reaction was comical. He initially tried to justify not paying them because they are self-employed, but I then asked him if the children of self-employed parents are somehow inferior to those of parents who have an employer. It was only then that he accepted it that there is more to this discussion than might immediately meet the eye.

I trust that the authorities will see this and will not ride roughshod over employers and businesses, most of whom genuinely do their best to offer their staff the best conditions possible, including flexibility when it comes to juggling family and work commitments. This is a situation that needs to be addressed by society at large, and not employers alone.