Sickness policy for most employers is unfair

ka7e

My son has had 2 periods of absence due to injuries sustained at work - one is recognised as being caused by the lack of a piece of equipment used in other departments, but not supplied in his. He has had disciplinary meetings each time and is told he does not appreciate the impact his absences have on the company!

After the last injury (to his back), his GP and the company doctor advised a phased return to work and revised duties. Phased return took 1 week and he has beeen required to go straight back to the most strenuous lifting - he has been rota-ed in for it and managers have ignored his requests for lighter duties. His subsequent welfare meetings to discuss his progress have never materialised .

This morning he has been sent home for requesting light duties after a doctor's appointment for back pain (where he was prescribed co-codamol). Another disciplinary will await his return.

His employers say he must be available for "all duties" or not to come in - and invoke an escalating disciplinary response. Most of his workmates are on painkillers (one says he is on morphine for back pain) but my son has started reacting to iboprufen, hence co-codamol.

dawyldthing

surely there should be aids to help move things like pallet trucks and the like? I can't find it online but your only supposed to lift certain weights at certain levels of the body

RichardD1970

dawyldthing wrote: »

surely there should be aids to help move things like pallet trucks and the like? I can't find it online but your only supposed to lift certain weights at certain levels of the body

As far as I remember, there is no actual legal limit, only recommendations.

Everyone's capabilities are different, what I would struggle to lift, the bloke next to me who spends 14hrs a week at the gym pumping iron would easily lift.

Saying that, if the majority of people are having back problems, then it sounds like the company are failing in their duty of care and need to reassess their manual handling policies.

The Manual Handling Operations Regulations set no specific weight restrictions on what is or is not safe to lift. Such requirements would be based on too simple a view of the problem and may lead to incorrect conclusions. Instead, the Regulations state that employers must assess the risks to their employees health and safety from manual handling tasks and take measures to reduce the risk of injury so far as reasonably practicable.

Page 10 gives the recommendations.
http://www.healthandsafetyworksni.gov.uk/getting_2_grips.pdf

Basil74

I work as a postman which is a very physically demanding job (despite what a lot of people who have never done it seem to think) you really need to be in peak physically condition, unlike a lot of other less demanding jobs where you can still work with minor injuries or ailments.

Despite all the above our sickness policy is pretty much as the o.p. describes, with little or no discretion.

Just recently one of my colleagues whilst on duty got bitten by a dog (in a rather delicate area) which required stitches, obviously needed a few days off, then came back to be issued with a stage warning as it was his second absence in a 12 month period.

bugslet

Whether it's right or not, I have read that anything over 25kgs you shouldn't lift, presuming you are well enough to.

I used to be able to deadlift 60kgs when I was loading groupage trailers - definitely not nowthoug.

I think the bigger firms have tighter illness policy's. We have none, but having to show a doctors note if you are off. And we only pay SSP. Which applies to everyone in the company. Started the company in Feb '91 and had 1.5 days off sick. Most of my employees seem to be healthy apart from that ended up suffereing from sever bi-polar. We msut ahve been Ok with him as his social worker rang up to say that not many firms would give him the chances that we did. *polishes halo*

makeyourdaddyproud

Laurajo wrote: »

It's a valid point though....

We had one person playing the martyr last year who dragged themselves into the office with 'flu...resulting in twelve members of staff contracting it and having a full week off.

Over the top sickness policies are counter productive though.

Brilliant outcome.

I hope company lost a fortune.

ka7e

It's not just lifting. He originally hurt his back doing manual "wrapping" of pallets. They are literally given huge rolls of shrink-wrap and have to run around pallets, wrapping them from bottom to top. The only way to keep the wrap taut is to do it walking/running backwards! For up to 4 hours at a time.

Other depts have a rotating platform and the wrap is on an automatic spindle, but his firm says his is the smallest dept and doesn't warrant the outlay. It takes too much time for everyone to wrap their own pallets as they might form queues instead of getting on with loading - so one person is assigned to do it for hours on end.

He is looking for another job as he fears he will permanently damage his back, but it's not easy and he is worried he will have a poor attendance record due to "illness" showing on any reference.

makeyourdaddyproud

Sounds like good fun.

Keeping fit and getting paid for it? That boss is innovative and doesn't realise it!