Contract law – Sick Pay

Morning, any legal beagles around today (or armchair types with an opinion).

Received a random blanket email today to all work force;

Please note that with immediate effect, we will no longer be paying the first three qualifying days of any period of sickness (“qualifying days”). This does not affect your statutory rights.

Fine – how does this affect Contractual sick pay though – not that i completely understand mine which states;

In appropriate circumstances, and on an ex-gratia basis, the Company will make top up arrangements whereby the total of payment and Statutory Sick Pay or State Sickness Benefit claimable will be a gross amount equivalent to full or hull salary. Affected employees are offered sick pay benefits for a two month period on full pay and two months on half pay.

So the outrage bus side of me says – oh no you cant do that without discussing it first, more sensible side says – they’re probably well within rights to do this.

answers on a postcard please..?

ta

Wikipedia:

When something has been done ex gratia, it has been done voluntarily, out of kindness or grace. In law, an ex gratia payment is a payment made without the giver recognising any liability or legal obligation.

Basically they have given you the top up out of the goodness of their hearts and now they are going to the statutory minimum, welcome to the new world !

and on an ex-gratia basis

There’s their get out
The 1st 3 days are often not paid

so your contact basically says they will pay you sick pay above the statutory minimum when they feel like it?

mental

Fairly normal, our company did the same – one girl had her first days of in about 10 years (she had been there 25 years) and they stopped her first 3 days.

Glad I quit last week

as others have said, employers don’t have to pay sick pay, all you are entitled to is £85.85 per week, so get back to work your benefit scrounger 😉

If you voted Tory, this is what you asked for

Wasn’t it Mr Brown who screwed the economy ?
🙂

Answer is it’s legal. However, if it’s a change of conditions they may need to give you 30 days notice.

Wasn’t it Mr Brown who screwed the economy ?

Yes I think you are correct according to the Express and Mail, he was the cause of the global recession.

He also single handlely took Maddy, caused global warming, didn’t cause global warming because it doesn’t exist and touched Princess Di’s corpse inappropriately.

However, if it’s a change of conditions they may need to give you 30 days notice.

With my facetious hat on, does that mean you can also change the conditions from your side. ie. With 30 days notice, I’m going to do 3 hours less per week. Just a thought, only seems fair.

I guess the point of the notice is that everyone can change the terms, you’ve got the notice period to accept it, or cancel the contract (ie, quit your job).

With my facetious hat on, does that mean you can also change the conditions from your side. ie. With 30 days notice, I’m going to do 3 hours less per week. Just a thought, only seems fair.

No problem at all, go for it

They – of course – may decide not to carry on with the altered contract and sack you, witch is the same option you have when they decide to change it

I think it would depend how long that has been the situation – as things can become part of your contract through custom and practice.

I also think the ex gratia get out clause is limited by the use of the word “will” rathar than “may” – they’re saying contractually “we dont legally have to, but we will pay you” rather than “we may pay you but we’re not obliged to”

ah thought as much. Said owner of company has been having some “moments” recently so am putting the mail down to an emotional response. so with moral at an all time low, staff taking sickies because they are fed up, the email this morning is just another nail..

Sui – seems to be several companies doing this at the moment, I heard a pharmaceutical company based in the Midlands are doing exactly the same thing.

staff taking sickies because they are fed up

Boot on other foot – with staff taking sickies is it any wonder your employers are sick of people taking the piss and are stopping paying them when they can’t be arsed to go into work.

It is a self-perpetuating problem and it is often equally the employees fault as it is the employers when morale is low.

My (somewhat limited) understanding is that if the company has always paid sick pay the its a “contract in practice” and the “ex-gracia” wording in the contract would be irelevent.

It is a self-perpetuating problem and it is often equally the employees fault as it is the employers when morale is low.

completely agree, there have been instances of sicknss that are a little more than dubious, The issue here is that you have manual labourers that have been with the company from the offset that quite frnakly don’t care (so bin them i say), but instead of penalising the repeat offenders, lets take a company wide approach. This then penalises those that are often busting out 4-5hours per day extra.. not good.

Recent events suggest this is merely an emotional response to some critism recently received (all constructive) – the “it’s my toy set and i’ll do what i like” approach is the usual response.

It’s a bit cowardly. Rather than deal properly with the offenders and face the confrontation and hassle, they punish everyone, and further demoralise the remaining good people, who will be polishing their CVs as we type all this.

It’s a bit cowardly. Rather than deal properly with the offenders and face the confrontation and hassle, they punish everyone, and further demoralise the remaining good people, who will be polishing their CVs as we type all this.

uncanny

Agree Sui and hels – the thing is that often people forget that employers are real people just like the employees are and they can become demotivated in the same way employees can. Chances are they feel equally disillusioned and feel they have already done everything they can and are now resorting to thinking ‘stuff them then, let’s just take away ‘perks’.

I have been in a similar position myself as an employer (won’t go into too much detail here just in case) but when the causes of my demotivation were removed I felt much happier in the workplace and this has reflected on other team members being happier too.

It is a horrible situation but sometimes it is difficult to solve it from within.

If they have always paid in the past then you could argue custom and practice / implied contract terms but its not the strongest case.

companies often have discretionary sick pay and you do not have a contractual entitlement to sick pay in your written contract.

If they have always paid in the past then you could argue custom and practice / implied contract terms but its not the strongest case.

And to me that is where lots of problems lay – in times such as we are in now, everyone is looking at ways of cutting costs where they can and discretionary sick pay is a perfect example. So all an employer needs is staff spouting off about ‘implied terms’ when all that employer was ever trying to do was be a fair and considerate employer.

So the net result is a bad relationship between employer and employee.

We were in a similar position – we give 20 days holiday + all statutory AND an extra 3 days at our discretion over Christmas. However certain members of staff complained, saying we were tight with holidays only giving 20 days. When we pointed out he also got 3 more days at Christmas he said that was now ‘implied etc’ and even though he accepted it was extra holiday he claimed it didn’t really count.

We looked into changing to ’23 days + statutory holidays’ (and make staff take three days as mandatory holiday over Christmas) but were advised by our solicitor that the implied extra days would now always have to be on top of our standard holiday. So we still give 20 days (plus 3 at Christmas).

Bloody daft and all it served to do was sour relationships with our staff.

No the problems lie with employers that try to take away contractual rights written or unwritten and your lawyer gave you bum advice there as well.

Why should employers use cost cutting as an excuse to cut T&Cs?

we give 20 days holiday + all statutory

That’s a bit stingy MF 🙂

and your lawyer gave you bum advice there as well.

That would not surprise me but as an employer in a small business I sometimes daren’t do a thing for breaking some code, rule, law or directive or other and we can’t afford to keep paying the fees that solicitors charge.

Saying that we DID successfully challenge a recent invoice they sent us as we disputed the effectiveness of the advice they provided.

That’s a bit stingy MF

Don’t you start – we give 3 more at Christmas!!!! (In fact it will be 4 this year because of the way the holidays fall).

We’re on 28 + the bank hols + 1 or 2 at Christmas depending how it falls

MF – there are companies that specialise in giving HR advice to people in your position dunno what the costs are but I have seen these people used and I guess there are others

they gave decent advice gernerally ( but I still found a mistake in it once but erring on the cautious side)

http://www.peninsula-uk.com/small-business-service/

We’re on 28 + the bank hols + 1 or 2 at Christmas depending how it falls

Good for you – I would say that is above average though. As a very small business we have to balance our package against our profitability. It’s tough enough without giving everyone another week or so off.

Thanks for that TJ – I shall have a look at that.

Good for you – I would say that is above average though.

I would think it is
24/25 + the stats seems popular but small businesses are going to be less

MF – there are other outfits that do this as well

24/25 + the stats seems popular but small businesses are going to be less

Well yeah, our team get 23 days so not that bad.

Cheers TJ – certainly food for thought.

Think yourselves lucky – my first job out of Uni in NZ I think I got 15 days plus stats. And they closed the uni between xmas and new year and took that off your hols, like it or lump it.

In USA the model seems to be two weeks, but lots of public hols.

28 days + publics – that’s not too shabby at all – i do like the continental model – they never seem to be at work ;0)..

Getting back on topic – if companies know they are looking to cut costs then they need to be a lot more black and white with contractual “promises”, we would then avoid all of this poor relationship issue.

But it wasn’t a promise, it was implied and that is what sucks for employers.

Again, we have always paid for all sick leave (from day one), hospital appointments, dental appointments, doctors appointments etc. Even paying when staff called in saying they would be in ‘at lunchtime because I have walked dog shit through my house and have to clear it up’. When one of our employees was off for an extended period we had* to pay him for a large portion of it as it was ‘implied’ that we pay even when people are off sick. It was only after a ‘reasonable’ period over and above the next longest period of sick could we tell him we would put him on statutory. And even then we got a rather nasty email from him saying what bad employers we were.

*IE we dare not withhold pay for fear of reprisals