The OIG Wants to Know How You Feel about Sick Leave

Filed under Labor  

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Career employees earn 4 hours of sick leave for a full pay period (80 hours), or at a rate of 5 percent. Some career employees are currently taking sick leave at approximately the same rate, liquidating their leave bank. The Postal Service’s sick leave absence rate (absenteeism) was 4.3 percent in 2008. This seems high compared to the 1.1 percent rate the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports for employees in the private sector and 1.7 percent rate for employees in the federal sector. So why was the Postal Service’s rate higher? A 2007 private sector survey by CCH Incorporated indicates two thirds (66 percent) of U.S. workers who take unscheduled sick leave do so for reasons other than physical illness, such as personal and/or family issues, stress, or entitlement. Is the Postal Service’s sick leave rate higher because employees call in sick for reasons other than physical illness?

The Postal Service cannot ignore the $1.4 billion spent on sick leave last year and recognizes that the best person to do the job is the person hired for it rather than a replacement. The Postal Service identified approximately 35,000 employees in 2008 with 20 or more unscheduled absences. That means 5 percent of its employees have nearly one absence for every paycheck! What is the impact on morale to the other 640,026 career employees? Is there something the Postal Service can do to reduce the number of unscheduled absences? We’d like to know how you feel about these issues.

Please take our survey.

This blog topic is hosted by OIG Human Capital.

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Permalink | Comments (127) | Apr 27, 2009

 

 

127 Responses to “The OIG Wants to Know How You Feel about Sick Leave”

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  1. 127
    Anonymous Says:
    March 31st, 2010 at 12:27 am

    Wow. A lot of anger at s/l “abusers” by coworkers.
    Hey, here’s a thought…just because you are my coworker and you see I am out for however many days this year, you do NOT have the right to label me an abuser! You are NOT privy to my personal life, my or my family’s medical records and do not have a clue (or at least, legally SHOULD NOT have a clue) as to why I am not in today, tomorrow, or whenever! If I am scheduled to work but call out, I have notified management as I am required to do. If I am on extended leave, I have also fulfilled my duties to report the circumstance and YOU are not entitled to a reason.
    Being sick, disabled, or caring for a family member while using sick leave (up to 80 hrs/yr) does not make me a sick leave abuser. It makes me a responsible human being – sparing coworkers from my illness which also spares my employer from further related costs, and a caring parent – teaching my child(ren) compassion while tending them. I don’t ask for the USPS to “give” me pay, I am using a benefit I have earned for just this use.
    While some “overuse” sick leave and need to be addressed via discipline or legislative reform to equalize the CSRS/FERS issue, the real abuse here is perception.
    People get sick. Family members get sick. Accidents happen. Surgeries are needed and parents age. And to coworkers and management who “know” who is abusing this benefit….it must be great to be that involved in everyone’s life that you work with that intimately that you know when sick leave is appropriate and when it is being abused.
    Then you certainly know about the disabled child I have at home who has had 7 surgeries in the past 24 months, and the 3 major surgeries I’ve had in the last 48 months. You must know about every stomach virus I’ve had that resulted in way too much time in the bathroom. And the ear infections one of my other children suffers with. You must know about my disabled veteren husband and my parent facing cancer. Should I go on?
    I guess now it doesn’t look like I’ve abused my sick leave anymore, does it? Maybe now, between the dr. appts, therapy appts, hospitalizations, traveling to and from said appts, the need to sleep occasionally, etc., you are wondering how I make it in to work as much as I do? Yeah, me too.
    And for the record, I personally have no sick leave left. I’ve used a fair amount of my annual leave in lieu of sick and quite a bit of leave without pay too. I have borrowed the maximum amount of advance sick leave and paid it back.
    Do I still look like an abuser?

  2. 126
    Jack Says:
    January 24th, 2010 at 3:20 pm

    Employees must remember they volunteered to come to work for the United States Postal Service. As a condition of employment sick leave is earned. When you have employees who abuse sick leave every paycheck it makes a difficult situation to cover the workload. FMLA is abused due to the frequency someone may use it. Postal Service should give credit just as they do with Annual. Set a maximum carryover and offer a buy back option at the end of the year.

  3. 125
    Anonymous Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm

    Buy back all sick leave. If the workers have no sick leave, absenteeism would be minimal. Also, the imbecile managers could stop pretending to be leave administrators.

  4. 124
    PayUp Says:
    October 17th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    I have been a letter carrier for over 23 years and have EARNED and accumulated my sick leave.

    When one calls eLRA correctly and receives his confirmation numbers and if it is over 3 days it states, that documantation MAY be needed UPON return to work.

    In my station, EVERY craft employee for the past 6 months is being LWOP for legitimatly documented sick leave both FMLA and non-FMLA.

    Management in our city is “playing” with the eLRA system.

    An OIG investigation is already in process regarding this.

    If you are not being paid for documented and legitimate sick leave, contact the OIG.

    NOT being paid for something you have EARNED not only affects you, it affects your family too.

    THIS PRACTICE IS NOW A PERSONAL MATTER AND MUST BE STOPPED !!!!!!!!!!!!!

  5. 123
    duazido Says:
    October 5th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    Sick leave is earned. If an employee is sick, that employee should be able to use sick leave without the added stress of having to deal with an abusive supervisor upon the employee’s return to work. At my plant, we are understaffed and our “leaders” now use the phrase: “Do more with less”. (Fewer people, more work) Then these same clowns want to lecture employees who dare to use 8 hours of sick leave. I have more accrued s/l than my supervisor yet he had the nerve to counsel me for going home sick and using 4 hours. He told me that (the ubiquitous)”they” would want documentation. The more he talked, the less I listened. I’ve used a grand total of 12 hours of s/l this year and this dummy has the nerve to try and threaten me. I know that it’s coming from the people above him, but still…

  6. 122
    maz Says:
    August 15th, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    HOW WE FEEL? WELL FIRST OF ALL IT IS MY BENEFIT NOT THE P.O. BENEFIT. IT IS FOR ME TO KEEP MY MIND AND BODY AT ITS PEAK PERFORMANCE. MY HEALTH IS ONE OF THE ONLY THINGS I WILL NOT LET ANYBODY TAKE FROM ME. JUST BECAUSE I SEEM OK DOES NOT MEAN IM NOT AT MY TRYING POINT MENTALLY AND NEED TIME TO RECOOP MY MENTAL WELLBEING. THE POST OFFICE HAS NO MERCY WHEN THEY FORCED YOU FOR OVERTIME IN THE PAST OF MADE YOU WORK SCREWED UP HOURS. I HAVE BEEN IN THE PO FOR 25 YEARS AND CANNOT GET NORMAL HOURS OR DAYS OFF THAT PUTS A LARGE STRAIN TO MY FAMILY AND MYSELF, NEVER MIND THE SCRUTINY YOU ARE ALWAYS ON. I ALSO DEAL WITH INEPT MANAGEMENT THAT ARE ON POWER CONTROL TRIPS INSTEAD OF DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR THE WORKER AND COMPANY.

  7. 121
    SAM Says:
    August 14th, 2009 at 8:42 am

    How is a person supposed to know ahead of time that they are going to be sick? How is my wife supposed to know ahead of time that my 4 year old is going to have an ear infection? Is it not better to have my wife call in sick rather than have day care call my wife in the middle of her route telling her that she HAS to come pick up our daughter?

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