Child Sickness and time off

marybelle01

Just to add. OP, your wife is not being punished or disadvantaged for taking time off to care for a sick child. She is being treated exactly the same as any other employee who has had five periods of absence. The right to unpaid time off does not entitle her to preferential treatment when it comes to the employer managing absence. People also have the "right" to be off sick, but that doesn't prevent the employer from dealing with frequent or high levels of sickness absence.

Hmm71

Did she ring in sick on the days she was looking after the baby? Or did she specifically ask for annual/emergency leave?

If she was granted annual leave but someone has got a bit confused and recorded it as sick leave then she needs to appeal against that.

If she rang in sick every time then I'm not sure there's much the employer can do about it. She should have asked for leave and in future as others have said you ought to be sharing the caring between you.

Uncertain

mad_angler1 wrote: »

She has been told she will be receiving a official warning on Monday regarding this time off. As far as they are concerned it all classed as sickness.

Well that is the point to address. Does she have a record of how / who she advised she would be taking emergency leave.

Multiple short periods of absence are something that many employers are hot on. As all is uncertified there is obvious scope for it being abused. Once somebody is off sick longer term it is at least certified by a doctor and tends to be less disruptive to a firm than unexpected absences.

As stated, the law allows short periods of emergency leave so the firm can't take action based on this unless they feel it is not short or wasn't an emergency.

I note you have not responded to my question about has the emergency leave been shared between you? If it has then she should make this clear to the employer. If not, they are quite entitled to ask why.

mad_angler1

When she calls in its to the local store and its security who answers due to the time of morning, she states she is unable to come in. Then upon returning to work she has an interview with the manager/dept Manager to sort everything. It's at that point she has stated whether its her or the baby for the reason.

My whole argument is we have been fully open and honest. Even changing her shift with out the required minimum notice when they have asked her to.

On one sickness occasion they swapped her day off to day she had off sick and she worked her normal day off to make sure she did not loose money, they offered to do this we did not ask so that should not even be counted

Would a Verval warning is being classed as disadvantaged ?


Edit

On the question of sharing the leave it can't be as I work away Monday to Friday, we have child care that looks after the baby in the mornings.

sheilavw

Where I used to work if your child was ill you had to use a day of your annual holiday entitlement, if you had 0 days left, you had to have it as unpaid holiday

System

as long as she told them and it was recorded correctly they can not put the two types of absence together to form a disciplinary.
i had a very vindictive manager who did this with me i received a verbal warning but i appealed it and won , the area manager agreed they could not be put together.
when she went back to work was there any form of ''back to work'' meeting ? if im off for any reason i have to sign a form and it details the reason for the absence.

mad_angler1

Thanks for all the responses. once she comes home (working today) ill be digging into it, as there are interviews after every absence there will be a paper record of what was said. Will also be speaking to HR Monday.

The Manager can be a petty one when he needs to be, they tried to give one person a disciplinary for not turning up for shift because they would change the fixed rota with out giving the minimum notice that there contract states they must be given.

liney

mad_angler1 wrote: »

On the question of sharing the leave it can't be as I work away Monday to Friday, we have child care that looks after the baby in the mornings.

Your wife must not call in sick. She must call to say is having to take emergency dependant leave because your child is sick. However, if this becomes regular, then the employer may question how unforseen the circumstance actually is and why there is no back up in place, because the time off is to arrange alternative care, not provide care.

Hmm71

mad_angler1 wrote: »

Thanks for all the responses. once she comes home (working today) ill be digging into it, as there are interviews after every absence there will be a paper record of what was said. Will also be speaking to HR Monday.

The Manager can be a petty one when he needs to be, they tried to give one person a disciplinary for not turning up for shift because they would change the fixed rota with out giving the minimum notice that there contract states they must be given.

I was going to suggest your wife asks if she can have access to the back-to-work discussions. Was she ever asked to sign them? When I was off sick at the Civil Service the line manager would hold a back to work interview then she and I would both sign the interview notes to say we both agreed with what had been recorded.

I don't know if companies have to make employees sign the discussion but it could be another angle to look into; what's the company policy on signing back to work interview records and was your wife ever given the chance to read and sign and thereby agree to what was said in the interview?

You said "will also be speaking to HR on Monday", not sure if you meant you or the missus but it would be better if she spoke to them. Also the chances are they won't speak to you anyway.

Hmm71

liney wrote: »

Your wife must not call in sick. She must call to say is having to take emergency dependant leave because your child is sick. However, if this becomes regular, then the employer may question how unforseen the circumstance actually is and why there is no back up in place, because the time off is to arrange alternative care, not provide care.

It is hard with a little one though. When I went back to work after having my daughter she went to a child minders and picked up every bug going from the other kids at the childminders. Fortunately they were always happy to look after her even when she was ill so I didn't have to take too much time off at short notice.
It's also meant she's built up a strong immune system so she's hardly ever off sick from school.
Sorry rather straying off the point there .