Pam Magazine 19/13: Don't be ill without a permission

The threshold for being ill is getting higher: employees are instructed to ask for a permission to go and see a physician, or they are asked to have their superior take their temperature.

Sick leave certificates from physicians are not considered credible, sick leave codes are rejected although they were approved earlier for salary payment, and persons who are ill are pressured to come to work and do some lighter chores, for example.

One of the most imaginative ways employers have come up with to reduce the number of sick leaves is probably the instruction for employees to have their temperature taken at the workplace: superior would then decide whether the employee could take a sick leave or not. There are places where employees have been required to ask for a permission to see a physician.

This is the result of a couple of phone calls to PAM officials around Finland.

Regional manager Niina Koivuniemi has had to struggle over these issues, especially with K-market store managers in the Häme-Pirkanmaa region. At the worst, one intimated employee came to work while being ill and fainted.

– It seems that the smaller the K-market, the greater is the need of the store manager to act as a physician, says Koivuniemi.

– What is the point of having more extensive occupational health care than is required by the law if it can't be used? wonders Ismo Karstinen, who is the official negotiating a dispute in South-East Finland. In that particular case, the employees would not accept the instructions that required them to ask for a permission to see an occupational health care physician.

Karstinen advises to use medical treatment at one's own discretion. If the cost of medical treatment is deducted from salary, the issue must be taken to the shop steward and to the union, if necessary.

– The employer is not a physician and not even a nurse, and it is not his or her responsibility to take the employee's temperature, says PAM lawyer Leena Löppönen.

Löppönen believes the reason for this increasing phenomenon is the employers' need to control their employees so that they would not take a sick leave without a really serious reason. Control is taken too far if it involves illegal actions.

The case of taking a temperature was taken to court in 2007. Vantaa District Court found the management of the HairStore chain guilty of discriminating their employees and endangering their health.

Tiina Ritala