Government sick days falling on holidays, storms and sports events
Nova Scotia government employees found themselves under the weather most often during holidays, storms and major sporting events, according to documents the Canadian Taxpayers Federation obtained under freedom of information laws.
The federation tracked the top 15 sick days taken by provincial employees during the 2013-14 fiscal year. The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia took place during that time.
CTF Director Kevin Lacey said the third highest sick day during that period was the day Canada played Latvia in the men's quarter final hockey game.
Canada won the game 2-1 and more than 1,200 provincial government workers called in sick that day.
Of the 15 days listed, only three did not have a major storm, holiday or sporting event associated with it.
"That really does show there is a trend to the number of sick days taken by our government workers," Lacey said. "It shows there is a trend to these sick days and they just don't happen just by accident."
Middle of flu season
The minister in charge of the civil service, Labi Kousoulis, points out that February is in the middle of flu season.
"We do know of unfortunate circumstances when people who are not in the best of shape, they get out and do something strenuous like that without a proper warm up," he said. "They can strain muscles or have hospital visits."
NSGEU president Joan Jessome agrees.
"People get sick. We're an aging population with higher than average illness," she said. "We've got family commitments, kids, weather issues, all kinds of reasons why people are out sick."
"Mental health in the workplace is the number one issue for people missing time. We should probably be looking first at the reasons why people are out versus taking a benefit away from them."
Nova Scotia government workers are allotted 18 sick days each year. The average number taken is 12, compared to eight sick days a year in the private sector, according to Lacey.
Four of the top 15 sick days happened during the Christmas and New Year holidays. August was also a big month for sick days.
Lacey says storm days were popular sick days, but explains it may have more to do with how the collective agreement is written.
Under the contract, government workers don't have to go to work if it is not safe to do so, but that time has to be made up.
Lacey says he thinks many times the day is just being classified as a sick day so the time doesn't have to be made up.
"It's time to get rid of these sick days. If someone outside of government is sick and can't go to work, they don't go," he said.
"We don't have days, it's not counted. Instead, what we should do is look at some of these trends through tracking. If there is an employee who is taking a lot of time off then we should look into why that employee is taking that time off and why on certain days."
Lacey calls on the province to dig deeper into the numbers and deal with an antiquated system.
Labi admits there may be some abuse of the system.
"I would say if you wanted to find abuse of sick days in any organization, you could find it," he said.
Jessome was critical of Lacey's call to do away with sick days.
"That's all he talks about is take it away, take it away, never tries to improve people's lives," she said.
Top 15 sick days
- March 27, 2014 (Day after major snow storm)
- January 23, 2014 (Day after major snow storm)
- February 19, 2014 (Olympic hockey: Canada vs. Latvia, 1 p.m. game)
- March 13, 2014 (Freezing rain storm /school March break)
- January 3, 2014 (First Friday after New Year's holiday)
- February 6, 2014 (Major storm late on February 5, 2014)
- December 27, 2013 (Christmas holidays, Boxing Day sales)
- March 5, 2014
- January 2, 2014 (Day after New Year's holiday)
- March 11, 2014 (School March break)
- December 30, 2014 (Christmas holidays)
- March 4, 2014
- February 20, 2014 (Olympic hockey: Canada vs. USA Women's Gold Medal)
- February 14, 2014 (Olympic hockey: Canada vs. Austria, 1 p.m. game)
- March 3, 2014
