Food for thought: Donated sick leave.

[DustyKat]

France Agrees Workers Can Donate Days Off to Colleagues with Sick Children.

France's parliament has passed a law which allows workers to donate their paid leave to colleagues with seriously ill children.

The law came into being after the case of a French man whose colleagues donated 170 days paid leave while his son battled with cancer.

The bill was presented by the right-wing MP Paul Salen, being passed in the National Assembly in 2012 before now being passed in the French Senate.

Workers will now be allowed to anonymously give days off to colleagues who need to look after their ill child.

Salen's inspiration for the bill came after the case of Christophe Germain, a worker in his constituency, who was given days off by colleagues to look after his 11-year-old son Mathys during his battle with cancer with the approval of his bosses. Mathys died in 2011.

Germain attended the Senate hearing where the right to give leave to colleagues was stretched to the public sector having already been present in some private companies.

In opposition, some Communists voted against the bill on the basis that it relieved employers of their responsibilities in the situation where an employee has a seriously ill child.

"Your bill, portrayed as being generous, will completely free employers from their responsibilities and create intolerable situations of injustice between those who can collect days off and those who can't," said left-wing MP Dominique Watrin.

Labour Minister François Rebsamen said he had "strong reservations" about the measure, adding that "rest days are part of the need for the protection of employees' health".

French workers have the most paid leave in the world with a minimum of five weeks legally required every year.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/france-agrees-workers-can-donate-days-off-colleagues-sick-children-1446923

We have quite generous leave entitlements in many industries here too, on a worldwide comparison.

I have been stockpiling my leave since Sarah was diagnosed and used much of it when Matt was diagnosed. I think I ended up needing about 12 weeks off in a 6 month period. I have managed to build it up again for a rainy day that I hope I won’t need! We also have Long Service Leave, an entitlement that kicks in after you work for the same employer for longer than 10 years.

I can see both sides of the argument here and I personally would donate time to a worker with a seriously ill child. I can however see the disdain at the thought that the employer may use it as a way of shirking responsibility and decency.

Just my personal opinion and musings and fully understand that other countries work under much more difficult pay and conditions.

Dusty.

 

[Tesscorm]

Interesting article. And, like you, can certainly see both sides.

I'm not sure what our legal rights are here but do know that in addition to your workplace 'sick days', there is a government policy covering Caregiver Leave.

 

[nogutsnoglory]

Wow that's awesome, the U.S. really needs to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of social services and employee rights.

 

[Jmrogers4]

We have a sick bank at my work where you donate one of your sick days each year and then you can take from it if you use up all your sick days. I'm not sure how much time you can take or what the process is and hopefully I'll never need it but I'm glad it's there if I need it

 

[my little penguin]

We have unpaid leave through the family medical leave act up to 12 weeks per calendar year to care for a sick child . It covers anyone in the us who employs over 50 people.
Sick days can not be banked from year to year where I work .

 

[Clash]

My Husband has sick incidences instead of sick leave, so if you take off for illness it counts as 1 time no matter the days, after so many days it falls over into short term disability days. They don't rollover sick time from year to year.

When I worked at the non profit we could bank sick days if not used at the end of the year and we also had seperate days for sick immediate family though I don't remember that those would rollover.

We had a local teacher had a child with illness and her colleagues donated their sick days through the illness and for a short time after the child's death.

 

[Goofychicken]

It would be lovely to have something like this... I've often said to my husband that I wish we could even share days between the two of us (we work for the same company). We've VERY lucky that we are able to do our work anywhere we have an internet connection so working from home or even in her hospital room when she was admitted was easy peasy.