Is this common workplace practice?

[LibDemAlways]

I'm a substitute teacher. This morning in the mailbox of the teacher I was filling in for was a memo from the head of the "teacher's association." It seems one of the teachers is ill and has exhausted her sick time. The other teachers in the district are being asked to donate up to three days of their own sick time to the teacher in need. I think it's very magnanimous that teachers would be willing to give up their own sick days for another's benefit, but what happens when they need those days? The memo indicated it was important for everyone to "chip in" and sounded kind of coercive.

Is this common and I'm just not aware of it, or does it strike you as unusual? Would you part with your sick days under these circumstances?

[Lars39]

1. The State of Tennessee does this.

Can't remember what they call it, but it has kept many seriously ill workers on the payroll so that they can continue to receive health insurance.

[bburton]

27. Montgomery County Tennessee

Here at our school district it is called the "sick bank" and all employees are encouraged to donate 3 days of sick leave. you only have to do it one time

[Lars39]

30. Welcome to DU, bburton !

Nice to see another Tennessean here. :hi:

[bburton]

34. Thank you

Been lurking for quite a while now, decided to join in

[charlie and algernon]

2. it happened in my office

a co-worker needed major surgery and was out of work for a few months. People donated enough days to cover all that time off.

[Wickerman]

3. Happens around my workplace

and I usually give up some time. I know when/if the shoe is on the other foot it will be returned. If not, well, it was still good karma.

Of course, I also pay extra to have short and long term disability so my need for it lessoned by that factor.

[Cant trust em]

4. I've done this for other co-workers.

At an old job I earned sick days at a rate of one day per month worked. After I worked there for a few years I had something like 20 extra days at my disposal. There was no way I was ever going to use them, so I donated half to a co-worker who was going through a protracted illness.

[blondeatlast]

5. It's quite common to my knowledge. One often needs to only donate a couple

of hours .

[LibDemAlways]

In this case it was full days, and three was the suggestion.

[blondeatlast]

14. That seems excessive to me, but each situation is different I suppose.

The most my workplace was asked to give was one day, but I also worked in a large, but tightly knot organization.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. We've done this sort of thing

in different jobs that I've had, but it was purely voluntary, never even the slightest of coercion.

[w8liftinglady]

7. we donate to a common pool for employees in need

a lot of people I know have 160 plus hours of sick time,and lose anything over that if they don't use it.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. I work for a state university and acquire 10 hours of sick leave a month. Each year, we hold a

donation drive to give hours to a pool. Anybody that uses all of their personal sick leave can apply for hours from the pool. I gave the first 7 years I worked here because I'd only use a day or two of leave. Then this year I got cancer. Had surgery and then was looking at 33 days of radiation treatments. My doctor recommended I take a leave of absence or just not work throughout them. I ended up working every day, taking 2 1/2 hours of sick leave. I made it through without having to go to the pool.

[Arkansas Granny]

A friend of mine works for the state and she can donate some of her sick time

if she chooses. I don't know exactly what the process is, but, in her case, workers are able to carry over any unused vacation time they have accrued at the end of the year, but they are only able to carry over a limited amount of sick time. As I understand it they can donate some of their sick days to a general catasrophic fund and other employees who need extra days can apply to use some of that time when they have exhausted their own sick time.

I've never heard of this in the private sector, but it sounds like a very nice gesture to me for those who wish to participate.

[tosh]

9. It is done in a large hospital near me.

When a nurse's husband was dying, other staff members pitched in sick leave so she wouldn't have to worry about loss of income.

I thought it was a tremendous gesture. It is probably only used in the most serious of cases.

That nurse (my late cousin's widow) had enough to worry about with her 2 kids losing their dad and her husband's illness.

It shouldn't be coerced, though, but strictly voluntary.

[Xithras]

10. Common, and I've done it.

This is pretty common in any larger organization with a large union presence of any sort. Leave sharing is a fairly common bullet point in most union negotiations, so that union members can help each other out when needed.

A lot of larger employers without union presences allow this also, since it requires minimal effort on the part of the employer and involves almost no cost to them. It's usually cheaper to keep a good employee out on sick leave than to terminate them and hire/retrain a new employee.

[ipfilter]

11. My union used to do this.

But not any more.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. It hasn't happened where I've worked, but if it did...

I would certainly give up a few days.

(If I needed them later for a long term illness, I would hope people would chip in for me.)

[MissB]

13. We get those daily via email

But our organization only allows donation of vacation time, not sick time. The donations are based on the hourly wage of the donator and the beneficiary receives the hours based on their pay rate. So the senior folks who have lots of vacation time at a high wage rate tend to donate more than the younger folks.

We are a huge org, and the emails go out to all to be fair. But I think most folks who donate do so within their own workgroups. It isn't forced.

[catbyte]

15. We give up vacation time

at my university. We have awesome sick time, but there are strings attached and the sick time is not our own. We get 20 days of "salary continuation". If you then work a 40-hour week with no sick time or vacation, you get it all back, another 20 days. I've never heard of this system before, but it's been a godsend, what with my husband's Type I diabetes and Alzheimer's finally taking their toll. THank you too to the Family Leave Act.

Diane

Anishnabe in MI

[ProgressiveProfessor]

16. Feds are allowed to donate vacation time to other Feds who need sick hours

[silverweb]

17. My company did it last year.

It's not an everyday thing, but sometimes it's just right.

One of my co-workers was very ill last year and undergoing all kinds of tests, and had used up all her sick and vacation time. An appeal went out for donated days off to help her out until she had a diagnosis and disability payments kicked in.

If it's strictly voluntary, I don't see how it could be a problem.

If you don't have sufficient days to part with any, then don't donate them. Simple solution.

[Nye Bevan]

18. Last time I took a sick day was in 2002

I *wish* I could have donated all of those unused days to someone who needed them, but I don't think my company has a program like this. I had never heard of this practice until I saw this thread but it seems like a good idea.

[Obamarama]

19. Yes it is, and I think it's totally wrong....

But not in the way you might think. As a matter of fact I've willingly donated small chunks of my PTO to a co-worker a couple times. Her teenage son had leukemia and she was having to take of quite a bit of time to care for him, take him to doctor visits, chemo, etc... and she ended up exhausting her time-off bank. I think it's a wonderful gesture.

What I have a problem with is that the company should be supporting this woman in this difficult time. She was a top-notch, dependable employee who already had a ton of time built up because she rarely, if ever, called in sick. I'm not saying the company should necessarily have to pay her for the extra time she was taking off, but her only other alternative was to resign because otherwise it would have been job abandonment. So instead, they pass the burden off to their other employees by "allowing" them to donate their accrued PTO. AND, it gets the PTO off the employers books so they benefit TWICE.

I'd do it again, though, if the situation warranted because in the corporate-dominated culture we have in this country we need to look out for each other.

[damntexdem]

20. Fairly common. Where used, those of us who hardly ever use sick days would donate.

Especially where sick days are use them or lose them, donating them before they're lost is a good option.

[REP]

21. Why isn't FMLA being used??

Donating sick days is a lovely idea, but teachers - who work with the greatest reservoirs of URIs on the planet - need their sick days. Why isn't anyone telling the sick employee how to use FMLA?

[rucky]

22. FMLA is unpaid leave.

it just secures your job in your absence.

[REP]

23. Not for every job; or salaried positions

Many sick days are unpaid as well (I had jobs with paid FMLA but unpaid regular sick days).

[Lisa0825]

45. FMLA only mandates that you wont lose your job for taking the time off.

Whether or not you get paid depends on your employer's benefits. Most companies I am familiar with do NOT pay for FMLA.

As far as the sick pool goes, the places I have worked which allow accrual and carry-over from year to year have had sick pools for people. That way people who have a lot of time accumulated and will likely never use it can donate their time for someone else.

[sufrommich]

24. My union does it, it's voluntary. nt

[mitchum]

25. It's just the serfs sharing their bread with one another...

so that the lord of the manor
doesn't have to kick in any extra crumbs

[jtuck004]

26. The President of the local university

sent a letter around campus to ask for donated sick days for himself while he underwent a treatment for cancer.

A few months later he is laying people off for a budget cut.

I hope he gets well, but this guy makes pretty good money, and if he had to be off on disability it would likely be higher than many people's paychecks.

[quaker bill]

28. Yep

we have a "sick leave pool" which you can donate hours to once you have a high enough balance on your own. It provides up to an additional 480 hours of sick leave to deal with a catastrophic illness. The "premium" for this "insurance" is 8 hours a year. As I have accumulated over 1000 hours in my own account now, I do not participate.

[Ms. Toad]

29. They tried to start that at the school where I used to teach -

I (and several others) pitched a fit. I rarely took sick days, and never when I was not truly ill. I left after 11 years of teaching with about 110 days of sick leave accumulated (after needing to use 30 days in one year when I was hospitalized for 6 weeks).

A number of my fellow teachers regularly took their 1.25 days a month of "sick" leave - whether or not they were sick. Anyone who had been there any significant period of time who was not abusing the system generally had enough sick leave built up to handle most illnesses. My donations would have gone to prop up people who were calling in sick merely because they were available.

(Had the question come up in the context of an individual teacher who had a true need - and had not been abusing the system - I would have donated in a heartbeat. The proposal was to create a general pool that could be drawn on by anyone who needed days and didn't have any stocked up, and I was not about to encourage more teachers to use their 1.25 days of sick leave a month as time off to play by making that practice risk free.)

[TicketyBoo]

47. Did you donate the 110 days

before you retired, or did you get paid for them, or did you just lose them?

If you just lost them, wouldn't it have been better to donate them before retiring?

[Ms. Toad]

48. The plan never got implemented,

because there was no way to restrict who was permitted to receive the days, and too many teachers who had excess days (like me) and the administration were aware that the pool would be used by people who were using their sick days as vacation days - and then needed more since theirs were all gone. In fact I'm pretty sure the move to create a pool was initiated by someone who regularly used up her sick days as if they were vacation days and then had to take unpaid leave one year for a relatively minor illness (when she could easily have had enough time built up to cover had she not been using her sick days as vacation days).

If there had been a pool set up - with restrictions in place to limit abuse - I might have contributed them. I wouldn't have contributed them to a general pool that anyone without sick days could draw on. I really think students are entitled to have their teachers in class, unless the teacher is ill - I find the practice of using up sick leave just because it is there inconsistent with being an educator, and would not have wanted to create an insurance plan so that teachers abusing the system could feel safer to continue to do so. On top of that, when a teacher is absent the school has to pay someone to take his or her place - so donating my sick days would actually have cost an extremely impoverished school district real money if they were used. Again, I would have been fine if someone really needed to be out and hadn't been abusing the system - but the balance is different for me if I am costing the school district money that might otherwise be used to permit it to add courses back in that they dropped because they had to concentrate all of their money on the core courses needed for graduation. (Physics, and all math beyond pre-calculus were dropped, for example.)

I think the days are still on reserve if I ever go back to teach there.

[TicketyBoo]

51. I absolutely hated

having a substitute teacher when I was in school, especially in elementary school (because it was for the whole day and not just one class).

I loved nearly all of my teachers (all but one, in fact), and, besides, a substitute just couldn't really do anything except keep order in the classroom. She didn't know where we were in the lesson plan or what we were doing. And I say "she" very deliberately, because I never had a male substitute (at least, not that I can recall).

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. We have a sick bank in our district

It is open to all employees. You contribute 3 days and then if you ever use up all your days, you can use sick bank days. I think it is a fairly common practice in school districts.

[tammywammy]

32. Not where I'm at

You'd go under FMLA and get paid your regular salary at full rate for a certain time period. After 5 days out of work you go under disability. Then on top of that, I have short term and long term disability that I could tap into.

[SteveG]

33. It's done all the time

Especially in public education and state government agencies.

[SteveG]

36. some further thoughts

I work for a University, and their policies follow the state's. You can accumulate up to 120 days of sick leave at the rate of 15 a year. It's essentially how the State deals with short term disability. When you retire, you will receive up to 90 days of pay, if you haven't used them. 11 years ago, I used a bunch (about 40) sick leave days when my son was undergoing a bone marrow transplant and was hospitalized for 5 months. But since I am seldom ill, I am back to the max on the sick time available. I would easily give up to 10 or 20 days, for another employee who needed it.

[Hekate]

35. Yep, that and holding bake sales for chemotherapy. Medicare for All! nt

[JuniperLea]

41. And car washes for funerals...

So sad.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

37. We have a sick leave bank that people can participate in.

[aikoaiko]

38. At my college we do it as a pool ahead of time.

A bunch of faculty and staff give up about 15% of their sick hours to enter in a pool. If someone exhaust their sick time, then they can petition to use some from the pool.

Only people who donate to the pool, get to use the pool.

[southernyankeebelle]

39. I think the civil service employees can do that now at the federal level. I

remember I had to have surgery and needed sick leave. I never abused any leave annual or sick. I just didn't have enough time. I requested the extended sick leave I was going to need and when I came back to work I worked it off. For over a year I had just annual leave. I never used much annual leave. It worked for me.

[etherealtruth]

40. Voluntary and common

I have parted with my sick days .... and would do it again for someone in need (with out hesitation)

[old mark]

42. This happens all the time - the emplolyers are such pricks they are

totally inflexible on workers taking sick time - if you don't have enough time, you can't get sick.
As an AFSCME Steward in a PA State Hospital, I know of many instances where workers were disciplined and even fired for being sick without sufficient accrued leave time. One woman I worked with had to be rushed to the hospital from work and into emergency surgery with a ruptured intestine. She received a disciplinary hearing and was put on probation for months, facing termination if she had to take other sick time. In my own case, I was informed that the state retirement system was told by the hospital HR department that I had taken "long absences" and that I was suspected of being out drunk. I had suffered 2 heart attacks and a 5-way bypass - I can show you my scars - and later pacemaker surgery doring these "absences", all of course documented.
Despite the HR folks efforts, I got my retirement pension.
HR departments closely watch sick leave to help keep insurance company profits up.


mark

[LibDemAlways]

43. I think the reason the memo bothered me was that

it seems unfair for employers to set arbitrary time limits on how often a person can be out due to illness, and that once that time is exhausted an employee has to rely on the goodwill of others who (knock wood) have the time coming and don't need it.

Why not just recognize that people are going to get sick and give them the time they need? Of course that's too humane.

Years ago I worked for an insurance company that was absolutely miserly with regard to vacation and sick time. (Of course the rules didn't apply to the managers who took time off constantly and didn't have to answer to anybody.) However, there was one poor lowly peon whose infant son had cancer. The bastards wrote him up for excessive absence and threatened to fire him because he wanted an extra day off after the funeral. Heartless shitheads.

[old mark]

46. There is a national organization for HR administrators. They meet yearly -

like in Vegas-and learn new ways to inflict suffering on employees who are not "in compliance with policies". I found an article several years ago on such a meeting in which ways of using the Family Medical Leave Act as a means to threaten and harass sick employees was outlined for a nationwide assembly of HR people.
Hitler lives, if just in spirit.

mark

[Liberal_in_LA]

44. Places I worked for even had a formal policy - i.e. ees could donate xx days max, must have

xx days accrued to donate, ect...

[MoralSyncretism]

49. Yes, I would donate

if the reason were compelling. E pluribus unum. If their system is set up to not allow that particular teacher any flexibility, then I would help out because that teacher is "in need" as you wrote. -- One reason? "There but for the grace of God go I."

[noamnety]

50. I've donated hours to another teacher

When she was due to come back from maternity leave, her husband had a stroke and she had to care for him.

I had use-or-lose hours because I rarely take time off. I hate leaving my kids with a sub and we have a 40 day limit on accrued leave.

I would have done it anyway, but the financial reality is that the district just didn't have enough padding in the budget to pay her salary and pay for a long term sub at the same time. The budget is so tight that the options were:

1. not paying her while she was out under the FMLA
2. paying her while she was out, and combining classes and cutting hours and pay for some other teacher(s) to make up the deficit, or
3. teachers donating enough sick leave that the district had some assurance they wouldn't go in the red paying for additional teachers' subs if they opted to use the max number of personal days.

I didn't feel coerced - and admittedly maybe that's a no brainer because I was going to lose those days anyway. I covered a few days of her salary at no cost to me, it's hard to see the downside of that. It's good to remember anyway that if the teacher's association is behind it, that's very different than the administration being behind it.

Schools are not like for-profit businesses with top CEOs raking in millions. Many schools are currently operating in the red and draining their emergency funds, and just crossing their fingers that the economy will recover a little before those funds are completed depleted because once that happens, the situation will get even uglier.

[LibDemAlways]

52. I had no stake in this at all. As a sub I get no

benefits.

If the teachers are willing to give up some of their hard-earned benefits to help someone out, I have nothing but admiration for them. However, in this small district (three elem. schools, 1 middle school, 1 high school) the superintendent is pulling down $160K a year. Each school office employs at least four full time staffers. The main district office also has a bunch of people who seem to have a lot of idle time on their hands. It seems like all the belt tightening is coming at the teacher's expense. That just strikes me as being unfair.

[noamnety]

53. It sounds like the superintendent is overpaid

and that's something for the community to take up with the school board. I suspect they set the salary for that position. The teacher association on its own doesn't have the power to change that; it sounds like they are doing an admirable job of trying to take care of their own and your resentment at the memo itself might be misplaced.

I know that sometimes to outsiders admin people "seem" like they have lots of idle time on their hands to outsiders who can't imagine what they do all day. Unless you are in a very well off district, I can guarantee the principal is aware of whether or not those employees are expendable and if they could have been let go, they would have by now. That's how it is in our area, anyway.

[LibDemAlways]

54. Before I started subbing I volunteered as a mom at the

middle school where I spent time in the office monitering the "student window." The office personnel spend plenty of time socializing. A couple of the jobs could easily be combined. And they rely on parent volunteers to greet visitors and handle student issues - which gives them even less to do.

I'm glad the teachers are looking out for their own. No one else seems to be looking out for them.