Canada PoliticsUnion upset at Harper government plan to reform sick leave benefits
This week is Public Service Week — a time to honour our public servants in Ottawa and across the country.
On Monday, Treasury Board President Tony Clement marked the week-long celebration by giving the unions a big lump of coal.
In Ottawa, Clement announced his proposed reforms to crack down on public sector sick days which he says are out of step with the private sector. According to the Harper government, the average public sector worker takes 18.2 days of paid and unpaid leave per year — nearly 2 and a half times his/her counterpart in the private sector.
"That is simply unsustainable for any employer that intends to run a modern, high-performing and effective work force," Clement said according to CBC News.
As recently explained by the Ottawa Citizen, federal public servants get 15 days of sick leave a year which they can bank year to year. Long-term disability is available — at 70 per cent of salary — after a 13 week waiting period.
Clement called the current rules "archaic" and pledged to introduce case management and rehabilitation support to ensure individuals are not taking advantage of the system.
"I think that the great majority of public servants are - when they take time off they are sick," Clement said.
"But there's no question that the rate of sick leave when you're looking at 18.2 days as an average in a year is well beyond not only private sector norms but other public sector norms."
Clement also said that his government will negotiate with the unions to make the long-term illness program fairer for workers.
[ Related: Public sector sick days, disability plan targets for reform ]
The Public Service Sector Alliance of Canada — Canada's largest public sector union —has taken umbrage to the announcement.
They released this statement on Monday afternoon:
This government needs to stop misleading Canadians about sick leave.
It’s public service week, and instead of recognizing the important work these people do on behalf of Canadians, this government is accusing them of milking the system.
The government hasn’t been transparent with its data, and the data we do have simply doesn’t back up their claims.
For example, it’s misleading to call unused sick leave a 5 billion dollar liability. If our members use banked sick leave, it’s because they are very sick. And if they don’t use it, they lose it. They certainly can’t cash it out or use it to retire early.
It’s also misleading to compare public and private sector sick leave. Many private sector workers get no sick leave. When they’re off sick, that’s not counted as a sick day.
Our collective agreements give management all the tools they need to manage sick leave responsibly. They authorize leave.
The government should be doing more to promote healthy workplaces, prevent illness and help people who are sick get back to work. Instead, we see the cuts meaning workers doing more with less and getting sicker.
Andrew Jackson, former chief economist at the Canadian Labour Congress, agrees with the PSAC narrative that recent job cuts in the public sector are at least partially to blame for the high number of sick days.
"Linda Duxbury at Carleton University has done a lot of research over the years indicating that the federal public service is a highly stressful job environment and this can only have worsened over the past couple of years with significant job cuts," Jackson, now with the Broadbent Institute, told Yahoo! Canada News in an email exchange.
"The unions have shown they want to cooperate re programs that get people back to work more quickly from sick leaves, but this government is not negotiating and seems to be scapegoating workers rather than deal with the real problems."
[ Related: Public sector union launches all-out attack against the Harper government ]
The battle between the Harper government and the unions continues.
(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)
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