Joan Burton Proposing Employers to pay for sick leave!!!

anymore

seamus wrote: »

It depends on the implementation.

A direct copy from the current regime would mean that the most an employer would have to pay an individual in sick pay would be €750, since this is roughly a month's sick benefit, minus the first three days (cos you're not entitled to it).

Employers would also be entitled to disqualify employees from sickness benefit on the basis of time served or minimum numbers of working hours.


If it was operated in a reasonable way where:

- Employers don't have to pay extra benefit for dependents
- Employers don't pay the first month of every illness, they pay a maximum of 20 days sick benefit in any given year
- Employers do not have to pay the first three days of any illness
- They are entitled to not pay sick leave (or pay a very reduced rate) to staff with less than 12 months service, or less than 20 hours a week employment.

Then it would seem like a relatively reasonable move.

Why on earth would an employer have to pay anything at all in relation to an emlpoyees sickness ? It is complete lunancy.
Do people not realise we are now comoeting for jobs with the BRIC countries and not with other 'Socialist Utopia' countries ?
Let me put it this way, should I be able to claim from my accountants, solcitors and other people I have some kind of contractual relationship with for my illnesses ?

seamus

anymore wrote: »

Why on earth would an employer have to pay anything at all in relation to an emlpoyees sickness?

Basically because the money has to come from somewhere. If it's coming from social welfare, then it's paid for through employer's PRSI. If sick pay is an issue, then they either raise employer's PRSI or they ask employers to pay it.

In reality, it's a question of whether we want to adopt the European socialist model where there's a much more symbiotic relationship between employers and employees, or the US model where employees are "resources" and employers are "paychecks".

Up to now we've been pretty good at straddling the line, but it's inevitable that we would choose one way or the other. Given that most of our employment law is strongly enforced/influenced by Europe, it's more likely that we will take that route of greater employee rights, shorter working hours, and so forth.

The wisdom of continuing to move towards that model in a time when we should be making easier to employ people and not harder is something to be questioned.

We are of course dab hands at taking with one hand and giving with the other. If this came in I wouldn't be surprised if they set it up so that any cost of hiring a replacement to cover the employee while on sick leave will be specially exempted from employer's PRSI or be tax-deductable.

So the Dept. of Social welfare reports a drop of €150m in costs, while Revenue are forced to concede a drop of €150m in tax take.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

seamus wrote: »

Basically because the money has to come from somewhere. If it's coming from social welfare, then it's paid for through employer's PRSI. If sick pay is an issue, then they either raise employer's PRSI or they ask employers to pay it.

This is silly logic in my opinion. As an employer / business owner I am not entitle to any welfare payments, as such I have health insurance to cover the possibility of getting sick and the medical bills, I have loss of income insurance incase I do get sick. Incase I die early I pay for Keyman Insurance to make sure my staff are protected and the companies will survive in my absense.

In an employees case I pay PRSI and other taxes to insure against them becoming sick and requiring long periods of time off work.

The issue is competitiveness. In this new economy some businesses owners can base their company anywhere and hire staff located anywhere in the world. By making Ireland even more uncompetitive to run a business in, people like myself will just move the jobs abroad to our other international offices or re-locate all together.

I believe by making the employer more responsible for these expenses they will either decrease employing as many, drop the wages in response or move the jobs abroad. Either way, the government will see a negative income from the move and the person who suffers the most will be the average Irish person. Be it in increased prices to cover increased costs for products and services, less jobs, lower wages or probably all three.

Lastly, spare a thought to those who do have health issues. If the government make it difficult for businesses to have staff on their books with health issues, then you can be sure that companies will do their best to cut down that expense by not hiring people who have a history of illness or conditions which may need them to take sick leave in the future. So if your father had a disease that could be hereditary, you may be unfairly passed over for a job or promotion due to this increased pressure.

anymore

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

This is silly logic in my opinion. As an employer / business owner I am not entitle to any welfare payments, as such I have health insurance to cover the possibility of getting sick and the medical bills, I have loss of income insurance incase I do get sick. Incase I die early I pay for Keyman Insurance to make sure my staff are protected and the companies will survive in my absense.

In an employees case I pay PRSI and other taxes to insure against them becoming sick and requiring long periods of time off work.

The issue is competitiveness. In this new economy some businesses owners can base their company anywhere and hire staff located anywhere in the world. By making Ireland even more uncompetitive to run a business in, people like myself will just move the jobs abroad to our other international offices or re-locate all together.

I believe by making the employer more responsible for these expenses they will either decrease employing as many, drop the wages in response or move the jobs abroad. Either way, the government will see a negative income from the move and the person who suffers the most will be the average Irish person. Be it in increased prices to cover increased costs for products and services, less jobs, lower wages or probably all three.

Lastly, spare a thought to those who do have health issues. If the government make it difficult for businesses to have staff on their books with health issues, then you can be sure that companies will do their best to cut down that expense by not hiring people who have a history of illness or conditions which may need them to take sick leave in the future. So if your father had a disease that could be hereditary, you may be unfairly passed over for a job or promotion due to this increased pressure.

very good reply - what more needs to be said ? The reality is that the \Irish people have shown again and again that they want a low tax, at least realtively low tax, economy/state and yet we then have to see this type of lunatic Alice in Wonderland suggestion coming from the Smoked salmon Soicalist party ! If they keep on with this nonsense, we may as well rebrand the country ' Greece 2'.

betonit

Riskymove wrote: »

again, as I understand it, there is no obligation to pay sick leave

whats the problem so...

drunkmonkey

betonit wrote: »

whats the problem so...

I asked the question in legal yesterday, seems once it's put into law, it's the law and you have to abide by it the same as health & safety.

If you've a good profitable well established business and can afford to pay it for staff well then ok but if your like a lot of us with 10 or under staff you may as well close the doors or fire them all and offer to take them back as contractors.

If an employee can take 4 weeks sick pay a year, there going to end up sick for 4 week a year along with 20 odd days holidays. This is complete bull**** from a public servant who has no idea what it's like to start, run and manage a small business. Who in the hell does she think small business people hire, teachers?

Someone said it earlier, tidy up your own house first you auld bat and then come and talk to business but in the mean time feck off Joan and help us create jobs not destroy them.

Christ I hate our politicians, burn them all!!!!!

betonit

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I asked the question in legal yesterday, seems once it's put into law, it's the law and you have to abide by it the same as health & safety.

If you've a good profitable well established business and can afford to pay it for staff well then ok but if your like a lot of us with 10 or under staff you may as well close the doors or fire them all and offer to take them back as contractors.

If an employee can take 4 weeks sick pay a year, there going to end up sick for 4 week a year along with 20 odd days holidays. This is complete bull**** from a public servant who has no idea what it's like to start, run and manage a small business. Who in the hell does she think small business people hire, teachers?

Someone said it earlier, tidy up your own house first you auld bat and then come and talk to business but in the mean time feck off Joan and help us create jobs not destroy them.

Christ I hate our politicians, burn them all!!!!!

so when this comes in to law employers have to pay sick pay at the moment they are not obliged to?? is that correct.

Nuttzz

If they did bring something like this in I would love if the SME sector employers brought in a VAT & PAYE/PRSI payment strike. Can you imagine if the vast majority of SME's held back a quarters VAT & PAYE/PRSI (say september to december) payment to the state. Joan and co would do a u-turn quicker than you could say IMF.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Nuttzz wrote: »

If they did bring something like this in I would love if the SME sector employers brought in a VAT & PAYE/PRSI payment strike.

Employers don't strike because we have no experience of "entitlements", we pay our dues and get on with things. The only person who would suffer is the employer and their staff not the government (and certainly not the civil servants who dreamt up the policy), so we have no interest in the punishments that would be forced upon us or making our staff suffer as a by acting on our political views. If something like this was brought in most of us would shake their hands, simile politely as we have learned to do and leave the country with the jobs and top talent in tow.

This is an absolutely a non runner so it's amazing they announced it at all.

ssbob

drunkmonkey wrote: »

If an employee can take 4 weeks sick pay a year, there going to end up sick for 4 week a year along with 20 odd days holidays. This is complete bull**** from a public servant who has no idea what it's like to start, run and manage a small business. Who in the hell does she think small business people hire, teachers?

I think you are talking b*ll**** here as this proposal is notsaying that an employee can take 4 weeks sick leave a year, it is saying only that the first 4 weeks burden where before had been on the social welfare department is now on the employers, the employees still need to get a sick cert like they would need to do anyway to claim social welfare, the employees would be losing out financially anyway by only getting the equivalent of illness benefit which I think is €188 for a full working week compared to what they are on anyway.

While I do not agree with this proposal, I do believe that Joan Burton is one of the few who is coming up with something new and fresh, since she took charge, they have increased the amount of savings they have made on fraud, she has also introduced a pilot scheme in 3 locations whereby you would have a social welfare card, this will eliminate people claiming Dole in multiple locations and also people claiming dole under someone else's name.

I do agree with the point you make however that until all savings that can be made in-house are made then don't you dare come after our businesses.

HellFireClub

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

Employers don't strike because we have no experience of "entitlements", we pay our dues and get on with things. The only person who would suffer is the employer and their staff not the government (and certainly not the civil servants who dreamt up the policy), so we have no interest in the punishments that would be forced upon us or making our staff suffer as a by acting on our political views. If something like this was brought in most of us would shake their hands, simile politely as we have learned to do and leave the country with the jobs and top talent in tow.

This is an absolutely a non runner so it's amazing they announced it at all.

We mightn't have experience of "entitlements", but it certainly makes me furious to see the kind of obstacles that are put in the way of decent entrepreneurship in this country, by a shower of absolute f*cking goons in the public sector and in government who never had to take a risk in their entire working lives. I don't agree for a second that small business people stand back and make these cool calculated kind of decisions, without any emotion being involved, and in any event, when you are trading in the domestic economy, it isn't open to you to just up sticks and transfer your business overseas because you don't like what is happening over here in Ireland, if you are running a small business here in this jurisdiction, and no moreso than if you have financial obligations, you are "pot committed", you can't just up sticks and leave with your staff.

I'm going to keep saying this, the problem here is one of a complete absence of representation for people who are both running small businesses and those who work within small businesses in the private sector and you may forget about the SFA or ISME, they have been so ingratiated in the social partnership frankenstein experiment in this country that they are incapable of representing small businesses and their employees.

What is needed here is organising up and down the country, get a movement together with a view to putting ten or twenty people into the Dail who actually "get" it, while we still have a domestic economy to fight for.

HellFireClub

Another massive part of the problem with sick leave in this country is the medical profession, who will give a sick note for someone having a bad hair day, and there isn't a thing that can be done about that or so it seems to me.

Then one the other side of the coin, I've seen a situation in the past where an absolutely incompetent manager has been the cause of an employees absence, by stressing an employee out to the extent where they were unable to come to work and the only recourse that was available to the employee was to go to their GP who, (rightfully in this case I might add), issued a sick note for 2 weeks for work related stress.

We've all had woeful managers and this country for some reason has a seriously high density of people who smarmed their way into managerial positions without any formal management training or without having any qualifications in this area.

Spacedog

I agree with her 100% these are hard times for everyone and business should pay their fair share, which they are not. Throwing your toys out of the pram every time you get a bill won't achieve anything. You all did very well during the boom time and gave little or nothing to the people whose work you benefited from. under the guise of social partnership.

<Moderator edit: Stop Trolling Spacedog>

Nuttzz

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

Employers don't strike because we have no experience of "entitlements", we pay our dues and get on with things. The only person who would suffer is the employer and their staff not the government (and certainly not the civil servants who dreamt up the policy), so we have no interest in the punishments that would be forced upon us or making our staff suffer as a by acting on our political views. If something like this was brought in most of us would shake their hands, simile politely as we have learned to do and leave the country with the jobs and top talent in tow.

This is an absolutely a non runner so it's amazing they announced it at all.

As an employer for 10+ years I am well experienced with lack of "entitlements" however I am sick that the likes of SIPTU can bend the government over the table and get what it wants, while small business like mine (or yours im sure) have no redress if rates go up, minimum wages go up, jlcs go up, vat goes up. We just take it.

If SME's were to withhold payment of tax that we collect on their behalf (unpaid for of course, imagine providing any other service to a business free of charge on a constant basis) without VAT revenue the civil servants might see where their wages come from and imagine the red face on Enda while he tried to explain why he needed extra bail out funds to "our european partners" to make up for a temporary shortfall

anymore

This is an example of the Government withdrawing from the provision of some benefit/service and passing the liability and cost of it on to the private sector but failing to reduce the charges it will continue to make of the employers, ie employers will still have to pay thier portion of PRSI for employees.
It is another abdication of responsibilty which makes one wonder how much loyalty should we have to this ' State/Government.

HellFireClub

anymore wrote: »

This is an example of the Government withdrawing from the provision of some benefit/service and passing the liability and cost of it on to the private sector but failing to reduce the charges it will continue to make of the employers, ie employers will still have to pay thier portion of PRSI for employees.
It is another abdication of responsibilty which makes one wonder how much loyalty should we have to this ' State/Government.

Your dead right, they shift the liability onto someone else, while they conveniently hold onto all the money that was paid for to provide the benefit, because the truth now is that we need that money to pay the bill for bailing out wánkstains who took a bad punt on Anglo and AIB.

This is nothing less than the classic definition of a dysfunctional state, where taxpayers money is collected, but instead of being used to the provide for the people who paid their tax, (to maintain the "common good"), it is used instead to bail out drunken arséholes who took a bad punt on a private sector business.

I hope people start waking up to what is happening to this country and at some juncture, decide to take a stand to the sheer insanity of what this country has now become.

colblimp

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Christ I hate our politicians, burn them all!!!!!

Bad idea - imagine the amount of Sick Pay that would have to be paid out...!

betonit

colblimp wrote: »

Bad idea - imagine the amount of Sick Pay that would have to be paid out...!

They'd get paid while they're out plus get their pension plus some kind of disablity payment plus make an insureance and their spouses would get carers allowance.