Office v Shop floor staff: Paid absence

buel10

Hi all,
Please can I ask for some opinions on this (although I think it happens in most companies): My employer pays office staff at our engineering company if they are off through sickness but not the shop floor employees.

I suspect that the thinking might be that the shop floor staff would abuse this but this does seem unfair. Please could I ask for thoughts on this, as in what the 'norm' is?

Thank you in advance.

~Beanie~

When I have worked in jobs like that it has been because the office staff are salaried whereas the shop floor staff are hourly paid. Not sure why that should make a difference but it always seems to.

Andy_L

It is unfair but, unless you could demonstrate indirect discrimination (eg by one group being mostly women & the other men), not illegal

TELLIT01

It's possible that the office staff are salaried, not paid overtime etc where the shopfloor staff are paid overtime. Just one example, but a possible explanation of a reason for different treatment of absence too.

Comms69

Andy_L wrote: »

It is unfair but, unless you could demonstrate indirect discrimination (eg by one group being mostly women & the other men), not illegal

That wouldn't be discrimination.


Even if one team was solely men and the other solely women. The reason for the discrimination would be key.

TBagpuss

Andy_L wrote: »

It is unfair but, unless you could demonstrate indirect discrimination (eg by one group being mostly women & the other men), not illegal

It may not necessarily even be unfair, it would depend on all of the other employment terms for each group.

One of the most obvious may be that one group are paid by the hour, and paid over time if they do additional time, and the other are salaried and expected to stay late / come early to make sure that the work is done, without getting anything extra for doing so.

Different groups may also have other terms which are different, which may benefit one group more than the other.

SuperPikachu

At my place we have permanent staff who are salaried and get paid sickpay but only earn "flex time" for overtime (plus they get shares & the chance to make a bonus, can buy extra days off and get all sorts of nice other perks).

And agency staff (such as me) who are paid hourly and can earn money for overtime but get no sick pay.

All doing exactly the same job in the same office.

xapprenticex

bear in mind, op has made no mention of discrimination, he just wants to know if this is normal. I agree with salary vs paid by the hour.

z1a

In a small place like mine it would depend on individual wage negotiation, I get it, most of colleagues don't. I negotiated and got it, but they know I won't abuse it. Probably had less than 10 days in 25 years.