Husband isn’t allowed to take sick leave
Hey guys. My husband is a permanent full time employee and his manager gets angry with him if he takes any kind of sick leave. One morning he woke up violently ill from about 2am and called in obviously sick. His manager told him he needed to provide more advanced notice. He only took one day (it wasn’t a Monday or Friday) but they demanded he get a medical certificate, which he did.
He hardly takes sick leave (maybe four times in the four years) so he currently has a lot of sick leave accrued.
Yesterday, I woke up very ill and needed to go to the doctor/hospital quite urgently. My husband went in and asked if he could take the day off (obviously I got a medical certificate) and explained exactly what was going on with me (which they shouldn’t be entitled to but I thought it might help them understand) but told him that they would have taken a day of work off of him forcing him to take 8 hours of unpaid leave.
That doesn’t seem legal. I spoke to a union because I keep telling him he needs to join one and even they said that with the almost 200 hours of sick leave available and a medical certificate, he should have been allowed to take the leave.
The whole reason they have that policy of taking a full day of work off of someone if they call in sick on a Friday, regardless of what is happening, is because of a worker who is an active drug user who consistently takes Fridays off but they have yet to take a day of work off of the drug user. And yes he is a drug user because he has overdosed while at work but the owner refuses to do any kind of drug testing. That guy is a mess.
Anyway, besides looking into a union, I just need advice of how to help my husband because he’s ready to quit but I told him that if he does, he loses all of that sick leave and he shouldn’t have to go into work sick or not be able to use carers leave to take care of family (we both work full time) for fear of punishment.
If I left anything out, please feel free to ask questions.