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.
This blog topic is hosted by OIG Human Capital.
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I am a ten year Part Time Flexible (PTF) clerk working more than 40 hours per week with NO hope of ever making regular due to the “decline of mail volume.” I work six days a week EVERY week and I have worked 13 days in a row every fourth week for over four years. That translates to three days off per month. Yes, some days I do not work an eight hour day but, I still have to go to work and NEVER have a scheduled day off. My day ranges from 3:00AM begin tour (BT) to 1:30PM BT and I work split shifts, which may require my day to be stretched over a 12 hour period. Now, why would I use sick leave?
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The PO is alot of wear and tear on your body regardless of age. If they acted like they cared about us, maybe it would increase the morale among the post office.but you have supervisors talkin to you like you are nothing, disciplining for everything to 2 mins being late over 5 pm to more serious things. The stress is unbelievable!! no wonder people are going out on sick leave for stress and stress causes other medical conditions or exacerbate existing conditions. We have no incentive for wanting to be there. everything is micro managed, to why did you have to go to the bathroom twice today? That will stress anyone out. they want to know every move you make! Yeah there are people who abuse it ,but forthose that are really sick, its stressful to even be called in for investigative interview as to why you are using FMLA! Its ridiculous and it needs to stop!The work conditions and management need s to get better and i bet the sick leave will go down. make us feel like we are worth something other than dirt on ground or slaves. Quit nitpicking on every little thing! Morale will improve, people will enjoy coming to work, etc. and they wont be so stressed that they make an existing illness worse or stressed that they need to take 2 sick days or whatever. TREAT US BETTER!!!!
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Some workers abuse sick leave due to poor & abusvie managers. They get annoyed about the stupid decisions that are made on a daily basis.
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YOU ARE ABSOLUETLY RIGHT. EVERYTIME I got sick was because of an abusive supervisor.
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Why should we be compensated for sick leave if we don’t need it???? It is a benefit, not a right! I am so grateful that we can accumulate as much as we can for when we really need it, but we get more Annual Leave than most people I know. If you aren’t sick you should not be using your sick leave. What is wrong with people that they have such a sense of entitlement? We get paid a lot of money and benefits, why screw the company that makes that happen? I just listened to a video on this sight where employees were complaining about stress and having to work so hard. You should be working hard, that is why it is called WORK. I am sick of people coming to work and acting like this is the bar on the corner and that it is social hour. GET A LIFE OUT OF THE POSTAL SERVICE!!! GROW UP!!! Come to work , do your job, make money, and then when you are not at work—-live your life.
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Sick leave is part of our compensation package as is our pay and annual leave. If you earn it, you should be allowed to either use it or be paid for it. Like our salaries, it is accounted for when making the budgets and calculating the cost for our services. There are two main problems related to the use of sick leave. The first problem is not employees using sick leave but employees using unscheduled sick leave. When people call in unscheduled it does put a burden on the rest of the operation and can result in extra costs to get the mail out (overtime). The second problem is the one often cited by higher level management and that is that many people earn sick leave at one rate, save it as requested, and then use it later in their career when it is paid out at a higher rate. I would like to see accounts set up for each employee like a TSP account. Put the amount of money you earn for your sick leave into that account each pay period. Have the accounts accrue interest that will at least match the whatever contractual raise you get every year. If you need to use it later, it has gone up in value to meet your current rate. If you save your sick leave until you retire, you get to keep what is in the account (after all, you earned it as part of your compensation). I think the postal service could easily find a bank or financial institution to make this work.
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MY SUPERVISOR RECENTLY GAVE US A SERVICE TALK ABOUT THE COST TO THE AGENCY CALLING IN SICK. AND A VERY NEXT DAY. YES THE NEXT DAY. SHE CALLED IN SICK HERSELF. SO HAVING SUPERVISORS LIKE THAT WHO IS ALSO VERY ABUSIVE RUDE AND A BULLY. SHE IS MY ROLE MODEL. MY HERO.
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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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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.
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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…
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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 !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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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.
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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.
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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?
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my manager seems to think fmla is a joke she doesnt pay me sick leave she just lwop me without pay.
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You said it. My spouse has stage 4 ovarian cancer, and has been fighting this disease for 32 months. Like you I have used all my annual, sick, and borrowed sick leave to care of her, take her to doctor’s appointments, surgery, 18 chemo treatments so far, treatments for blood clots, and more other things than I can list here. Unless you others out there have lived my life you have no idea what I (we) are going through on a daily basis. As a side effect of the chemo her blood counts remain very low, which means she cannot spend time in public, or around others that may be sick. Of the 32 months she has fought cancer, she has been confined to the house for over 20 months, of which, the other 12 months, she was in remission, but later scans showed the cancer had come back, requiring more chemotherapy. Have you ever felt like a caged animal, standing or sitting in front of a window for hours each day, wanting to go outside, but couldn’t? Have you ever taken a medication that totally wiped out your immune system, or suffered side effects from this medication that were so bad you needed help walking from the bed to the bathroom and felt like just giving up and dying would be a blessing? Have you ever cared for anyone in this condition? Have you ever had to leave them and go to work, only to have them on your mind all day, wondering if they were ok or not? Some of us do not abuse our sick leave. I go to work sick because I have no choice. I wear a mask and gloves at home when I am sick so I don’t infect her. I do everything in the house because she simply doesn’t have the strength to do it anymore. I work as many days as I possibly can, and on those days I agonize in my mind and heart because I know she is alone at home. Does this put any added stress on me? Of course it does. Believe me, I am not complaining here, I am very blessed. I am dealing with this situation with the help of my Postmaster and I do provide documentation for each and every day I am out of work. This letter is for the others out there that seem to pretend in their own minds they know what is going on in the lives of all their fellow employees. It is easy to stand on the outside and make judgments and gossip behind other’s backs. My Postmaster is very understanding, and my hat is off to him, he is wonderful to work for. He has a huge heart and is very understanding and sympathetic for those who really need help. The Postmaster before him was totally the opposite, and I thank God she wasn’t diagnosed with cancer under his watch. It may look as if a lot of us that are out of work are abusing the system, but we may have legitimate cause not to be there. When the self-righteous gossipers out there call in sick, are you really sick yourself? Are your so called friends talking behind your back when you aren’t there? Think about it.
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The answer is abusive management who create a hostile and stressful work environment for the workers. I can tell you this from first hand experience. I am a retired letter carrier I have been retired for over 3 years. I have also worked at another job for all of those three years. I was sick all the time at the post office. I have only used ONE day of sick leave in the last three plus years. That is because I am now treated as an ADULT. I’m left to do my work without constant HARASSMENT. I’m not required to follow a million useless rules made up by people who have no idea of what I do, but am just required to do my job.
The number one reason for the Postal Service’s attendance problems is the poor management practices, the multitude of rules that make the job harder for no reason, and the abusive managers who make the workers lives a living hell.
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Ive been reading a lot about this subject lately and i learned a little more from reading this, thanks for the post
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Nice post. I rarely comment but wanted to commend you for these efforts – however your website is going slower than usual this morning
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SUPERVISORS can be sometimes so hard on people
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Does that really answer the original question??
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