Labour organization looking to drop doctor’s note requirement
Posted Jan 22, 2016 5:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A labour organization wants to make Alberta the first province to waive the requirement for sick employees to present their employers with doctors’ notes.
The Alberta Federation of Labour plans to push the province to write it into the employment standards code, which the NDP government has said it was interested in opening up again.
AFL president Gil McGowan said for absences of a couple of days, the workers should just stay at home, away from doctors’ offices and the workplace.
“By forcing working people, especially low-wage workers, to dig into their pocket to pay for a doctors’ note, it’s actually providing the financial disincentive for these workers to do what they should really be doing, which is staying in bed getting better,” McGowan said.
Right now, some unionized workers don’t have to provide sick notes if it’s written into their contracts.
“Those workers are more likely to do the right thing, which is to stay home, and not bring their illness to work,” he said. “The evidence is clear that when people aren’t penalized for being sick, they take care of themselves, they get better, and they don’t infect their coworkers.”
