One more space alien question: if you are too sick to work or you have family emergencies, do you take days out of that pile or some other pile?
Take more than 5 days off and you're relying on good will and have to attend meetings to explain it, in theory you might get dumped to statutory pay.
In terms of family emergencies you either take them as annual leave or you rely on goodwill. Normally I've been able to get half days for funerals but that's based on the IT world where they know I'm making up time for them regularly.
I'd love to spend a few years in UK/Ireland, but I might be too spoiled (from Scandinavia). :-)
I always assumed they are better places to visit than to really live in.
You can claim statutory for 28 weeks, but your contract might allow more than this. After the 28 weeks, you switch entirely to the benefits system until you are fit enough to work again, but your employer doesn't have to take you on again after this.
My father was long-term sick, and was paid at 100% pay for 6 months, then 50% pay for a further 6 months, which was part of his contract. His employer extended the 50% pay to a total of a year out of goodwill.
Obviously these thing vary depending on age etc but my girlfriend has a policy like this and one for unemployment any they aren't preclusively expensive.
I don't believe that any of these leave dates are paid for by the government - but they are specifies as conditions of employment through Government legislation. It basically becomes a cost of hiring a permanent employee (vs a contractor). An employee will be absent approx 6-7 weeks of the year - 4 weeks annual leave, 1 week sick, 2 weeks public holidays (Christmas, Easter, Melbourne Cup)
Yes - In Melbourne, we have a mandated Public Holiday for a horse race.
If you're unable to continue doing your normal work due to some injury, you employer is expected to try to find other tasks for you that you can do despite your injury. If they cannot, you're expected to find a new job that you can perform. During this time you get 80% from the state.
There are exceptions and lots and lots of rules about all of this, but the general principles should be fairly correct.
How does it work in practice?
In general it seems to work fairly well, but as with any system there are both people who abuse it /fraud)and people who get abused by it (get defined out of the system because they're "not sick enough" - they're treated as unemployed instead).
There was a study recently with the conclusion that there is 5-10% over spending in the system (e.g. people get more than they were supposed to if everyone filled in every form correctly), including both mistakes and fraud. In my opinion that's pretty good.
Edit: link to governmental info, in English: http://www.forsakringskassan.se/nav/f86d9f2974b05d211aaa2c19...
Then there's the question of will you get paid or not - under a certain amount of days you won't be paid (I think it's 3). After that other mechanisms kick in.
Family emergency is usually in the holidays pile. Some companies allow 1 day off per year if someone dies.
You can also (based on company agreement) take a day off and just decide not to get paid.
So no their isn't a "pile" of bankable sick days. Just know if you are sick for too long you go on disability which is a separate matter I'm not familiar with.
I've actually been (gently) scolded for using a vacation day instead of a sick day to take care of my wife when she was ill.
You get 3 days a year of family responsibility leave, e.g. death of a close family member, having to take care of a sick child, etc.
You get 6 weeks (which translates to 30 working days if you work 5 days a week) of sick leave for every 36 month cycle.
On the other hand, if someone's got a bad case of cold but still can work, they will come to work.