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sick child
If my child is sick am i entitled to look after him and still be paid or is it to be unpaid?
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You are entitled to a reasonable amount of UNPAID time off to care for your dependants. This is intended for you to be able to make other arrangements for your child, eg grandparent or someone else to look after them. A reasonable amount of time would not be taking 2 weeks off because they had chicken pox.
Unfair, but true...
Why on earth should other workers have to cover for co-workers who are taking time off to care for sick children, whether paid or unpaid. Don't people who choose not to have children (perhaps for financial or career reasons) contribute enough to people who chose to have them with schooling, tax credits, and other benefits. Next it will be sick pets, neighbours, or even garden plants. It is because of behaviour like this that employers, especially small businesses, can hardly be blamed for discriminating.
If the parent/carer did not have the right to time off to look after a sick child, they would be put in the position of being forced to commit an illegal act i.e. leaving a child home alone while they go to work. It is not acceptable for the law to require someone to commit an illegal act in order to protect employers and co-workers, whose rights are not stronger than the desirability to prevent an illegal act being committed. Hence all leave to care for a sick dependent should be guaranteed and fully paid. This is not how it is, but it is how it should be. British employers currently enjoy an unfair advantage in this respect, over employers in other EU countries.
Totally disagree Hgrove. So, as I don't have kids should I get extra paid leave each year? Because that is totally ridiculous to give an employee extra paid leave just to care for a dependant. I agree with Ben, I'm 21 and have no children so why should I break my back to cover for someone who is away because their child is sick? If you can't make provisions for your children when they're sick/ school hols, etc then perhaps you should cut your hours or get a less demanding job.
Under law, you are not entitled to be paid if you take time off to care for a sick child (or any other dependent). If, of course, it is your employer's practice to continue paying employees in such circumstances, then that is at their discretion. However, all employees have the right to take a reasonable period of time off work to deal with an emergency involving a dependent - this can be a child, partner or parent or someone who lives with the employee as a part of hte family. This leave will be unpaid unless there is an agreement between employer and employee for the employee to be paid for all or part of this time. However, government guidelines suggest that no more than one or two days should be taken in these cirumstances - enough time to put longer term arrangements in place.
Natalie and BenDToy... so, you're basically saying everyone fend for yourself - I'm going to only take care of myself.
I think that in a healthy society, everyone does what they can to take care of others. That means that when you need less help, you give what you can, so that when you need more help, people are there to help you.
A healthy society would make sure that life is not impossible for children, people with kids, and elderly people. Does that mean that sometimes healthy adults have to work a little more? Maybe. Those same healthy adults may in a few years be disabled and need disability benefits... wouldn't you want these to be available? Or the same healthy adults may then have kids and have no family nearby to care for them when they are sick. That's a tough situation and it requires a little leniency.
It's most frequently NOT possible to cut your hours, because having kids can be very expensive (for instance, I make a good salary, but now with a kid we are really struggling to scrape by. Can I cut my hours if I need more flexibility to take care of my kid? Well, I would love to... but I can't).
Saying "why should I work harder so that someone else has time off to take care of their sick kid" is a very limited way of thinking. Okay then, why should I work harder when you're retired, just so you can get your retirement benefits? Why should I work harder when you've been injured on the job, so you can get your worker's compensation?
Katie1k, to answer your original question: I don't think you are automatically entitled to paid time off, but why don't you ask your employer about it? My boss lets me take it out of my own paid sick time.
I'd just tell your boss that you're sick - and then you'll still get paid. Everyone does it. That's presumably why Natalie and BendyToy are so annoyed. (But why are they reading a parenting site if they don't have kids? And if they do, surely they'd understand that you can't predict when your child gets ill - so doing fewer hours etc doesn't actually work. I totally agree with Hgrove. Legal or not legal, you just CAN'T leave a sick child unattended at home!
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