In the Maritime Subbie thread, sick pay was mentioned. How many of you chaps and lasses get paid sick pay ?
I work for a decent company, pay is good, start times are good, work is easy, but they dont pay sick pay. All you get is SSP.
I can understand why some companies don’t pay sick for the odd day, too many people having mondayitus, but for longer term sick ? If I broke my leg I would be ■■■■■■, or I would have been until I took out an Income Protection Policy a few months ago.
Just seems in this day and age to be a very outdated policy, especially when a lot of these companies seem to struggle to attract drivers
I get sick pay but not for the first 3 days but after that it’s 6 months full pay on average earnings.
We get full sick pay, salaried with no excess period before sick pay triggers which i think encourages the bad uns, its good to have as back up in case something goes wrong, but it needs to be carefully policed because there will always be people who take the ■■■■, and no it isn’t the older ones usually (exceptions in all age groups) who in many cases would have to die before they’d phone in sick.
Personally i’d rather sick pay was replaced by an attendance bonus to encourage/discourage the different types/attitudes.
We are pretty good on everything, but we pay SSP and it’s one of those red lines for me. I’ve worked where there were generous sick pay policies and saw the lead being swung, so it was a no when I set up for myself.
When I was a very small company about 6 drivers, we had someone off for nearly 6 months with a genuine illness. If he’d been on full sick pay, it would have been very tricky for us.
I have two income protection policies, as I’m on SSP too.
My company have been very good with me,6 months full pay followed by 6 months half pay (I went back to work for 8 months in between this period)after that runs out they have agreed for me to have a years “career break” after which I can go back to work and maintain my 14 years service with them.
Really could of asked for more from them in terms of their help!
Some say big companies just see you as a number,that couldn’t be further from the truth from my experience working for one of the biggest logistics companies in the world.
I can see both sides to the argument, a smaller firm may not be able to cover the cost of a driver off for many months after a heart attack or similar, but a larger “logistics” company should be able to do so.
I just think that if a larger company has a loyal driver who’s been with them for years, does a good job, then they should try to look after them a bit. Maybe some do, but tell the driver to keep it quiet.
Can the companies themselves not take out, or offer, discounted policies as a benefit for the driver ?
To be honest, it wasn’t really an issue as I assumed most haulage jobs worked the same way, it was just that after reading the post in the other thread I thought that maybe I was in the minority in only getting SSP
xichrisxi - Sounds like you have found a good employer. And it works both ways, they have been good to you so you do your best for them.
At my last job, sick pay was six months full pay and six months half pay, and by god was it abused! Sad truth is, some people will always use a system to gain maximum benefit for themselves, the minority spoiling it for majority.
Now I think I get more than ssp, but not by much.
joeyd:
I can see both sides to the argument, a smaller firm may not be able to cover the cost of a driver off for many months after a heart attack or similar, but a larger “logistics” company should be able to do so.
I just think that if a larger company has a loyal driver who’s been with them for years, does a good job, then they should try to look after them a bit. Maybe some do, but tell the driver to keep it quiet.
Can the companies themselves not take out, or offer, discounted policies as a benefit for the driver ?
To be honest, it wasn’t really an issue as I assumed most haulage jobs worked the same way, it was just that after reading the post in the other thread I thought that maybe I was in the minority in only getting SSP
xichrisxi - Sounds like you have found a good employer. And it works both ways, they have been good to you so you do your best for them.
I intend to,before this happened I had one day off sick in 13 years but situations beyond my control has meant I’ve been needed at home for the last year or so.
Bearing in mind that one can be in and out of hospital for even abdominal surgery in less than a week nowadays - this move to “not pay sick pay until day four” is like those TV adverts for “Funeral plans that don’t pay out in the first two years”. In other words, if you are actually diagnosed as dying - you are not covered. These plans are to make money for the layers. Nothing more. They even admit on the adverts that by the time your cover is in play - the amount will have reduced due to fiscal drag/inflation - and still won’t pay for even an average funeral!
The layers, of course - really want fit-as-a-fiddle customers who’ll be paying the dues for 50+ years, at which point they would have paid in enough to buy a bloody house, rather than just pay for even the fanciest funeral with horse-drawn hearse, two-lid “Casket”, and burial plot in Highgate Cemetery. 
There must only be a small minority of operations taking place in hospitals these days that involve a longer than a week’s stay in hospital. Once you reach that point (one week off, qualify for full sick pay) then you get the hurdle that there is a good chance you’ll not be back before the “full pay” turns into “half” and then Zero pay of course. Thus, it can be argued that the company sick pay system has laxed into something no longer fit for purpose, companies having got around EU regulations supposedly there to prevent just such a thing from happening!
All those EU so-called workers rights enshrined in laws that Remainers worry about us losing…
…and here we are, having for the most part already lost the meat off the bones of what once was a decent care system.
I understand the need to stop people taking casual sickies “to see the cup final” or whatever. Perhaps a better system would be open-ended at the far end at least?
…In other words, if you have to go through a qualifying period to get sick pay in the first instance, then that sick pay should be “for as long as it takes” in the case of workers being diagnosed with Cancer, or undergoing amputations, etc. Things where, let’s face it - you’re not likely to be back in the office chair (let alone the driving seat!) any time soon.
Things have changed. It’s now time our laws, rights, and sensibilities - changed with them don’t you think?
Juddian:
We get full sick pay, salaried with no excess period before sick pay triggers which i think encourages the bad uns, its good to have as back up in case something goes wrong, but it needs to be carefully policed because there will always be people who take the ■■■■, and no it isn’t the older ones usually (exceptions in all age groups) who in many cases would have to die before they’d phone in sick.
Personally i’d rather sick pay was replaced by an attendance bonus to encourage/discourage the different types/attitudes.
A system where you “get it unless it’s taken away” seems fairer than one where you “don’t get it unless a good reason is given for having it awarded”.
I agree with you on the “open to abuse” aspect. The same applies in reverse though surely?
That is, you get a guy taken away in an ambulance in a coma, there’s no one to “put in for sick pay” for him among the managers, so sloth, oversight, etc. happen instead which means that guy’s family end up being booted out of their big-mortgage house long before anyone from the management is even considering holding a whip round for the poor bugger who’s been out for some weeks now, having not yet woken up. The family’s income stopped - because the standard is “no sick pay, unless there is a good reason for paying it”.
Who puts someone in for it, when the sick person is unable to do it for themselves then? The same applies to fancy outsourced sick systems where the “off sick party” is expected to phone people, and report in sick etc. Who does that for you, if you are unable to do it yourself, being actually sick and all?
Not many staff are going to be friendly at a social level with one or more of the management - surely?
Managers should manage. Perhaps a better and fairer system would be “You get it as standard”, but a manager can put in a chit saying “withhold this guy’s pay, because the only reason he was taken away in an ambulance that day - is because he turned up for duty falling down drunk, and duly fell over!”
My funeral plan pays for my funeral regardless of the cost in the future,I’ve paid £3500 for it in full and when I die it will pay for a funeral with Cooperative funeral.
Both me & my wife took out this plan early this year after my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer,my wife has planned her funeral down to designing her own pamphlets with poems/pictures ect in,she is a much stronger person than me that’s for sure…being just 38 she shouldn’t have to be even thinking about this!!
But insurance plans are worth having,if we didn’t have such good insurance then right now we would have money worries on top of everything else and I certainly wouldn’t be able to take a year off unpaid to look after my wife.
We have had absolutely no problems claiming my wife’s life insurance which she was able to claim on terminal diagnosis which us enabled us to forget about money altogether because let’s face it no matter how ■■■■ things are the bills still keep coming in so without everything we had in place we would be in a bad situation financially given that we moved into a brand new house just over 2 years ago.
People that say insurances are useless hopefully one day won’t regret not having any.
Nothing for the first three days and then an average of your wage for up to two years, the only proviso being you must visit a company appointed doctor after six months off.
Curiously this never gets abused by the drivers. The cold store warehouse staff on the other hand…
xichrisxi
Thats a humbling post and puts all of our trivial gripes into perspective.
Yes fortunate indeed you had the forethought to insure well, though safe to say we’d all rather be reading a post from you in twenty years time grumbling about how much money you wasted on insurance premiums that were never needed.
Good for you all that you can afford to take that time off to look after each other, and kudos to your employer who it would appear have done their best by you too.
All the best mate.
Juddian:
xichrisxi
Thats a humbling post and puts all of our trivial gripes into perspective.
Yes fortunate indeed you had the forethought to insure well, though safe to say we’d all rather be reading a post from you in twenty years time grumbling about how much money you wasted on insurance premiums that were never needed.
Good for you all that you can afford to take that time off to look after each other, and kudos to your employer who it would appear have done their best by you too.
All the best mate.
Thanks mate appreciate it…just don’t get me started on car insurance,now THAT is criminal!!.
xichrisxi:
My company have been very good with me,6 months full pay followed by 6 months half pay (I went back to work for 8 months in between this period)after that runs out they have agreed for me to have a years “career break” after which I can go back to work and maintain my 14 years service with them.
Really could of asked for more from them in terms of their help!
Some say big companies just see you as a number,that couldn’t be further from the truth from my experience working for one of the biggest logistics companies in the world.
That’s good to hear. I’m not a big company fan but it’s really only big companies can do this from a financial and practical position. It must have been a bit of a godsend for you.