Not really. While sick days are depressingly few in America, they DO exist. The fact this person took none of them is just nasty.
Like Ford, many restaurant workers don't get paid sick leave
As a single father with three daughters, Ford never took sick days because frankly, he couldn't afford to.
Ford's job — like more than half of restaurant and accommodation jobs as of 2020 — does not offer paid sick leave, meaning workers typically do not get paid for missing work due to illness unless they dip into their paid vacation time.You should just be able to call in sick when really sick and for as long as needed. Verified by a doctor of course.
The money doesn't come from the government, it comes from the taxpayers. The governments are supposed to do what they promised to do with our money via their election peogrammes.
(In an ideal world that is...)
However that means that cost of the sick leave is spread over the whole society and not a single company, or single manager’s budget, making it easier to accept for business owners.
That’s why Europeans typically do not have to worry about being paid for sick leave, unlike Americans.
My colleagues in the US are often like "I won't call in sick because I have no sick days left". That's dangerous en counterproductive.
Where the money comes from is a secondary issue.
Once the magic number 3 was reached, the employer would ask that a doctor issues a "not fit for work for X days" to avoid abuse of this facilitation.
Additionally workers are guaranteed £109.40 ($139.33) a week in statutory sick pay (paid by the employer) for up to 28 weeks of time off for illness.
For contrast, the median weekly full-time income is £640 ($815) so it's potentially a big drop in pay for being off work sick - we have one of the lowest rates in developed nations - but it's better than getting nothing.
The way this works is generally quite flexible. Do you do this every other week then yes the first day you will be sent for a cert. If it's once a year they won't bother.