CFIB report looks at bankable sick days among public employees in P.E.I.

The P.E.I. chapter of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said it's concerned Charlottetown has one of the highest number of allowable banked sick days in the country.

It's calling for an end to banking sick days in the public sector.

But the union that represents city employees said the report doesn't tell the whole story, and that the alternative being suggested could end up costing taxpayers more in the end.

CFIB recently released a national study examining how 16 cities and every province deals with banking sick days unused sick days that roll over to the next fiscal year, and add up over the period of employment.

Erin McGrath-Gaudet is director of intergovernmental policy and of P.E.I. for CFIB. She said the reason behind the study is to allow tax payers to see where their money is going, something she says is important to CFIB members.

"For us, it's just one more of those costs that we think it's important for the public to know, but also to draw awareness to it so that when the city or the province is going into those collective agreements, that there is an awareness of the costs of some of these benefits, and actually in some cases that they're not that common."

How Charlottetown compares:

Six of the 16 cities examined don't allow any bankable sick days, and two Moncton, N.B. and Winnipeg allow unlimited bankable sick days.

Of the eight cities that have a cap on the number of sick days allowed, Charlottetown's CUPE 501 agreement for city employees was the highest at 350 sick days banked per employee. The average cap is 200.

"I can understand from an employees perspective that that's something nice to have," said McGrath-Gaudet. "It's nice to be a jurisdiction that is more generous but certainly it's something that we hope will be part of the conversation because ultimately at the end of the day the city has to be able to balance its books as well."

Charlottetown is one of three cities that also offers a pay out of 50 percent of up to 75 sick days not used upon retirement or leaving employment. That's somethingMcGrath-Gaudetsays is concerning."That cashing out is something that is relatively uncommon, it does happen in some collective agreements, but if you look across the country, that is a very generous measure."

At the end of the day, workers should have some protection when they have a catastrophic illness.- Lori MacKay

Mandy Feuerstack, HR manager for the City of Charlottetown, said those banked sick days help employees when they need it most.

"This is our short term disability plan in effect, so we allow people to earn sick days according to their time earned, to the tune of 1.5 days a month," she said. "They can get 18 sick days in a year and use it as they need it, and if they don't use it, it will roll over, so if they ever do have a longer term illness, they have days to cover that illness until they get to a long term disability situation."

As far asabsenteeism, Feuerstack said the city isrigorouswith making sure cases for using sick daysarelegitimate.

"We require medical certification after three consecutive days of absence, or after 10 cumulative days in cases of patterned or excessiveabsenteeism. We also require medical certificates for any future absences forthose people who may be problematic. We have ways to manage the program and not have people utilizing excess sick days."

P.E.I.'s banked sick days

When it comes to P.E.I. provincial employees, the study looked at agreements with The Workers Compensation Board of Prince Edward Island, the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission, and the Prince Edward Island Union of Public Sector Employees.

The study says that six out of 10 provinces allow sick days to be banked. While Quebec and Saskatchewan have no limits on sick days, P.E.I. is one of four provinces that has a cap on the number of sick days people are allowed to bank.

P.E.I.'s cap is middle of the road, at 215, compared to 208 in Manitoba, and 240 in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The province does not offer sick day end of employment payouts.

CUPE weighs in

Lori MacKay, division president for CUPE P.E.I., said she's not surprised by the report because it's not the first time the CFIB has examined the benefits of unionised workers. Banked sick days are put in place to protect workers, she said.

"It's something everybody should have. In the report they say, well, the public sector has way more than the private sector, well, in my opinion that's unfortunate and shameful on the private sector because at the end of the day, workers should have some protection when they have a catastrophic illness."

The study estimates that less than three per cent of private sector sick leave plans allow employees to bank sick days, compared to 28 per cent of government sick leave plans.

She said if a private sector employee gets sick and doesn't have benefits, it's the taxpayers who will be on the hook to help when they can't work, and can't afford to feed their children.

Missing from the report, said MacKay is the calculation of workers who do not use their sick days.

"I have some sick time, I hopefully will never have to use it. And that's not reflected in this report, because the liability would be on somebody's books that I have that sick time, but there's lots of workers that never use the sick bank, and that's not reflected in the report. It's not about usage, it's about what the benefit is for folks."

When it comes to sick leave payouts at the end of employment,MacKay said those decisions are made individually by unions at the bargaining table.

"I can't speak to that because I don't know what was on the table, you know, what did the workers trade off for that particular benefit?" MacKay explained. "At the end of the day, the employer is bargaining, they've signed off on that particular article, it's not just the union here, bargaining happens on two sides."

CFIB proposes alternative to banking sick days

The CFIB study suggests instead of banking sick days, governments should instead consider using short term disability plans, which it believes will be more cost efficient.

"We don't want to see governments coming back and asking tax payers when they're already quite pressed, and businesses included in that obviously, for more money," said McGrath-Gaudet. "We really do want to see spending on a sustainable level."

However Lori MacKay said that is not necessarily a cheaper solution, and could create more red tape.

A short term disability plan will mean dealing with a private insurance company even for a couple of sick days, something MacKay said could mean premiums continually going up, and more administration costs neither of which the report addresses.

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