When was the last time you called in sick?
Did you feel guilty about leaving your co-workers to cover for you?
Chances are if you work in the private sector, your answers are very different from those of some government employees.
Numbers recently obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation through Freedom of Information and Statistics Canada data requests show the average private-sector worker in B.C. took 7.4 sick days last year. The average government employee took 12 sick days.
Federal government employees are the worst of the bunch – taking an average of 17.9 sick days last year. More federal employees book off sick every day than actually show up for work at General Motors and Chrysler across the country – combined.
Government sick days add up to a lot of taxpayer money. The B.C. government, to its credit, has a slightly lower sick day average among its 25,345 core employees – 9.1 sick days last year. That is still more than the private sector average, but roughly half of their federal counterparts. The government estimates that those sick leave days cost taxpayers $29.2 million last year.
Multiply that figure across all 410,895 government employees in B.C. – including those working for municipalities, regional districts, universities, colleges, transit authorities, health authorities, federal offices and other agencies – and taxpayers could be paying out as much as $500 million in sick leave every year. And that’s not including long-term disability.
No one is suggesting that sick leave be eliminated. Obviously, we all get sick from time to time and, when bad enough, should be able to stay home and recover. But a culture has clearly grown within many government agencies where sick leave is another benefit to be exploited – how else do you explain the discrepancy in numbers between the private sector and government employees?
Even the big unions know this, and are using the promise of reduced sick days to negotiate raises with the B.C. government, to comply with the Premier Christy Clark’s co-operative gains mandate. The BCGEU, for example, extracted an increase of four per cent over two years for 26,000 of its members based, in part, on reducing sick days. Of course, there is no plan to claw back those raises if sick time is not reduced.
Government agencies need to be more aggressive in following up with employees who call in sick.
Imagine: something as simple as being held accountable through a phone call caused fewer government employees to call in sick.
It seems many government employees have no idea what it’s like in the real world, where sick days are taken only when you’re actually sick. With the sick day gap between government and the rest of us now at 62 per cent, and perhaps costing half a billion dollars annually, it should be taxpayers who feel nauseous enough to need time off.
Jordan Bateman is the B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.