Paid leave to care for ill child

cavendish9027 · Post by **cavendish9027** » 04 Mar 2016, 11:32

My child has been ill since last Sat. My wife took mon, tue and wed off to care for him. It was my day off thur. He is still ill today (friday) so i took the day off to look after him. I have not had a single day off before for his care or any hospital appiontment or scans. My wife has missed maybe 10 days in 2 years so i thought it only fair i took a turn. The manager just called to inform me that i will not get paid. Is this correct?

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 04 Mar 2016, 12:36

Yes unfortunately.

Post by **POSTMAN** » 04 Mar 2016, 12:43

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wannabeek · Post by **wannabeek** » 04 Mar 2016, 15:50

Yep it sucks but it's all down to the discretion of the manager. Anything short of immediate and urgent hospitalisation of a dependent is unlikely to be given paid time off, in my experience.

It's the same for my wife in a public sector job and probably most jobs I reckon. I've switched days off and she has too to accommodate sick kids. Sucks a lot but I think almost every employee of any company in the country is in a similar situation.

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 04 Mar 2016, 16:34

By asking for time off to care for a child you are invoking a statutory right. As such the business cannot reasonably refuse but it must be unpaid, what can happen (unofficially) in certain circumstances is that unused annual leave can be taken instead but time off for dependents is one if those situations where management actually don't have a great deal of discretion available.

motherhubbard · Post by **motherhubbard** » 04 Mar 2016, 16:39

However if you just phone in sick, you would get paid.
All seems a bit silly really.

Harv12 · Post by **Harv12** » 04 Mar 2016, 20:21

Happened to me 2 weeks ago, the wife couldn't take the day off as she works in a mental hospital, she'd organised a day trip which takes weeks of organising if she took the day off it would have been scrapped, so i asked the boss if i could stick a days leave in as iv 2 days left to take, he basically said no i had to take it unpaid.

1st time iv asked since our kid's been born, was propa pissed with him,

Post by **aiden01** » 04 Mar 2016, 22:23

motherhubbard wrote:However if you just phone in sick, you would get paid.
All seems a bit silly really.

And how often do you just phone in sick next thing RTU

job

?

peshwaarinaan · Post by **peshwaarinaan** » 07 Mar 2016, 11:21

So they don't put it down as sick pay for you then?

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 07 Mar 2016, 17:17

peshwaarinaan wrote:So they don't put it down as sick pay for you then?

I don't think they are allowed to as sick leave and dependants leave are both covered by various statutes.

peshwaarinaan · Post by **peshwaarinaan** » 07 Mar 2016, 17:40

TrueBlueTerrier wrote:
peshwaarinaan wrote:So they don't put it down as sick pay for you then?
I don't think they are allowed to as sick leave and dependants leave are both covered by various statutes.

Ok thank you TBT. The reason I'm asking is that my son is off school with a chest infection. I am due back in work on Wednesday but he might be off for the rest of the week.