Ill health retirement

[josmawo]

Have recently been dismissed by Royal Mail on evidence of a phone call with ATOS. No medical evidence from GP.
Can they do this?
Josmawo

[POSTMAN]

Welcome,i'll move this to the Union Room Forum.

[madelin4]

Have recently been dismissed by Royal Mail on evidence of a phone call with ATOS. No medical evidence from GP.
Can they do this?
Josmawo

How long have you been with royal mail? are you on a stage ? and how long where you off sick? you should seek a good union rep here.

[scottyb]

are you covered under the DDA.

[josmawo]

Did not have any 'face to face' interview until 'appeal'
Received a phone call on day one telling me I was going to considered for ill health retirement.
Never had 48 hours notice or time to arrange for union rep.
Dismissed 9 days later.
Told to appeal within 5 days
Dismissal upheld..still with no medical evidence.
Am now at ACAS/Employment Tribunal stage.
Anyone heard of outcome of similar cases?

[josmawo]

What is DDA?

[DGP1]

Disability Discrimination Act - If you have a medical problem covered in the act then you are covered.

[DGP1]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeo ... DG_4001068 Have a read through this to see if you're covered.

[thebeast]

Why where you sacked?

[norbert]

Did not have any 'face to face' interview until 'appeal'
Received a phone call on day one telling me I was going to considered for ill health retirement.
Never had 48 hours notice or time to arrange for union rep.
Dismissed 9 days later.
Told to appeal within 5 days
Dismissal upheld..still with no medical evidence.
Am now at ACAS/Employment Tribunal stage.
Anyone heard of outcome of similar cases?

pressure from on high and the usual panic mode , RM haven't followed their own procedure , that'll look good ! , sounds if RM are clinging to the flimsy premise that ATOS can overrule/ pull rank on a GP as they are classed as " Occupational Health Consultants " , very arrogant and over simplistic , quell surprise !

Also they supply "desired answers " to the set questions that the RM managers acting as Amateur Consultants ask .

It'd be better if RM settle out of court as I'd like to see their shady slippery solicitors waffle ,move the goalposts & wriggle out of that one in a IT . If RM are going to turn the clock back a decade or two , it'll have to be" the only language they understand" approach . :lfo :lfo :cfo :cfo but the orders are "RM will defend it's" position "in any Tribunal" so it appears they don't care about consequences .

[josmawo]

Any 'activists' in this union room?
On the CWU website there is a 'leaked article' about ill health retirement and directions to managerial how to 'deal' with it. Any comments?

[thebeast]

Where is this document?

[josmawo]

Where is this document?

CWU website> News>18 August 2004
Search 'News' for 'sick Absence.
It's an old article, I cannot find any follow up to it on the CWU website.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Where is this document?

http://www.cwu.org.uk/members/action.as ... 8&catid=21

What’s Really Happening on Sick Absence!
18 August 2004

Issuing officer(s): Dave Ward, Ray Ellis

Maximum publicity was guaranteed over Royal Mail’s prize draw offering for employees who are fortunate
enough to stay well over the next six months.

Not surprisingly no publicity was sort over the other measures Royal Mail is pursuing.

The purpose of this letter is to give you the complete picture.

It’s important to us that you know the full extent of Royal Mail’s plans and the CWU’s response.

What’s the problem?

Royal Mail wants to reduce the cost of sick absence. They claim that their employees’ absenteeism is
significantly higher than outside industry.

A recent management document put the cost of sick absence at £250 million pounds per year – by the time
the Courier was published, a couple of weeks later, it had apparently risen to £350 million. They are also
concerned at the impact sick absence has on quality of service.

How do Royal Mail intend to tackle the problem?

There are three key elements to their plan and they say they want to work with the Union.

1 The prize draw – we have no problem with our members being rewarded through the opportunity to
win cars and holiday breaks etc. Similar schemes already operate in other industries.
However, there is external evidence that these schemes end up being short-term fixes – alienating
those employees who are genuinely ill.
The Union believe Royal Mail must do more to tackle the root causes of sick absence. (Low morale – stressful
and pressurised working conditions – in some parts of the industry the growing physical demands of the job).

2 New Rules for Managers and Employees – Royal Mail has issued new Guidelines outlining
managers and employees responsibility for making contact during sick absence.
Their original set of rules were extremely harsh and impractical. Amongst other things they obliged
managers and employees to make contact with each other on a daily basis. In our view they would have
led to employees being harassed into coming back to work when they were still ill.
Following Union intervention these Guidelines have now been considerably watered down.
However, they have not been agreed by the Union and we still remain concerned over some elements.
We have advised Royal Mail that we will monitor the situation closely and defend any members who are
treated unfairly. Royal Mail has confirmed their new Guidelines will not change the existing Attendance
warning trigger points.

3 A New National Sick Absence Procedure
Royal Mail has told the Union that they want to re-negotiate our existing national procedure by October 2004.

In recent weeks we received a leaked copy of an internal management document, which set out the scope
of the changes they want. It makes very worrying reading! Their document revealed the following:
• Management want to reduce entitlement to sick pay.
• Shortened triggers for warnings to speed up sacking.
• Attendance, discipline and appeal to be dealt with by the line managers.
• Reduction in sick pay entitlements for accidents at work.
• Sacking long-term sick staff without compensation.
• Refusing overtime after return from sick leave.
• Stopping bonuses for staff with attendance warnings (31% of Royal Mail Letters staff).
• Managers are to be league tabled and targeted if they do not enforce the new rules.

Conclusion

The Union informed Royal Mail that we will not agree any changes that bring about a deterioration of
our members’ terms and conditions.
We have made it clear that we will support joint activity to identify and tackle root causes; improve
preventative healthcare; give better support to people with long term illness; help people back to work
through improved rehabilitation.
In summary we want to see a new procedure that takes a more sympathetic approach to those who
are genuinely ill.

We all know that in any large organisation there are people who abuse sickness – but they are a small
minority. Most people who are not at work have a good reason for being off.
If Royal Mail proceed unabated with their approach, it will simply add anxiety and pressure to sickness
– this would be morally indefensible.

Remember genuine sickness can affect all of us.
We will be talking to management about these issues over the coming weeks and will keep you informed of progress – or not.

Dave Ward
Deputy General Secretary (P)

Ray Ellis
Assistant Secretary

[thebeast]

This does not mention ihr and is 4 years old