Federal employees take nearly three times more sick days than Canadian employees in other sectors, sparking concerns in the wake of Labour Day about chronic sick-leave abuse that needs to be stopped.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), a non-profit group in support of lower taxes, is calling on Ottawa to crack down on this practice when union contracts expire in 2014 and 2015.
Canada is seeing an “epidemic” of sick-leave abuse among employees working for the federal government, and it needs to be stopped, CTF federal director Gregory Thomas said in an interview.
“Alarming”
On average, federal government employees took 17.9 days of sick leave for the 2011/12 period, according to the most recent Treasury Board of Canada figures. In contrast, employees in the private sector took only 6.7 sick days in 2012, Statistics Canada figures reveal.
“It’s significant; it’s alarming,” Thomas said of the public sector trend. Ottawa has a payroll of about $43 billion and hundreds of thousands of employees, so the long sick leaves mean that a couple of billion dollars paid by taxpayers are being wasted every year simply because civil servants don’t show up for work when they’re supposed to, he explained.
Veterans Affairs employees took the longest sick leaves of all federal workers during the 2011/12 period—24.2 sick days.
“The behaviour of Veterans Affairs employees is unbelievable,” Thomas said in a press release. “We’re not talking about war veterans here, we’re talking about desk jockeys in Ottawa. Rather than honouring their employment obligations and assisting the heroes who have fought for our country, they pad their generous vacation time by taking […] sick leave.”
Other federal departments where employees took long sick leaves during that period include Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (21.6 days), Correctional Services of Canada (21.2 days) and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (19.3 days), according to the Treasury Board.
The federal entities with sick-leave trends below the public sector average were the Department of Justice (13 days), Environment Canada (12.6 days) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (11.5 days).
Thomas dismisses the possibility that the discrepancy in sick leaves between the public and private sectors exists because securely employed federal workers are always genuinely sick when they take time off—while private employees, who tend to have less job security, often feel obliged to work even when they’re ill for fear of losing their jobs. “It’s a fantasy—look at your neighbours, your family, your friends,” he said, explaining that the behaviour of federal employees defies the health trends of the general population.
But Thomas adds that Ottawa’s recently announced plan to tackle its high absenteeism rates is encouraging.
Solution
The new initiative aims to modernize the federal government’s outdated disability insurance system, which hasn’t been updated for 40 years, according to the Treasury Board, a statutory cabinet committee responsible for much of the federal government’s operations.
“It’s time we fix an inefficient system that doesn’t work for employees, who need the support, or for Canadian taxpayers, who are footing the bill,” Tony Clement, president of the Treasury Board, said in a June press release. “The public service suffers from exceedingly high levels of absenteeism, which is unsustainable for any employer looking to run a high-performing and productive workforce.”
Specifically, Ottawa intends to introduce, for the first time, short-term disability (STD) insurance, according to Clement. About 87% of Canadian employers have STD programs, making the federal government one of the few large employers that does not provide coverage for short-term illness.
At the same time, Ottawa plans to reform its long-term disability (LTD) plan, first introduced in 1970, in order to provide a seamless connection between STD and LTD programs. Under the current rules, benefits coverage is provided to federal workers after 13 weeks of illness.
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