The FOA public services union is critical of an initiative to reduce sickness absence by the Billund local authority in the Southern Denmark region. The council is paying an attendance bonus and this may be taken up by other municipalities. FOA argues that if sickness absence seems too high, then this may raise questions about management responses and about understanding the causes of absence. The union makes the point that employees should not be forced to go to work if they are ill, particularly when they are working with the young, the sick and the elderly who would be more vulnerable to any contagious illnesses.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/446
Czech: http://www.foa.dk/Forbund/Presse?newsid={64E0509C-F9C9-402D-B47D-4C356270CBA7}
This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. or the communications officer of the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.