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BS. You cannot believe the abuse of sick pay and FMLA. You simply cannot believe it. My s-i-l manages a group of service reps who make 50K/year have the best benefit package available anywhere, and can't manage to get to work on time, if at all.

By the end of February, all have used their vacation allotment for the YEAR. (This is a minumum of 3 weeks including personal days and often 4-5 weeks) They then start taking sick days, and signing up for FMLA for some made-up condition.

How do you run a busness like that? They can't fire these people unless they can prove fraud. How do you get that type of information? You hire investigators and dig into their 'private' lives. What else do you expect a company to do? What would you do if it were YOUR company?

My s-i-l manages a group of service reps who make 50K/year have the best benefit package available anywhere, and can't manage to get to work on time, if at all.

Have you managed to get them to leave work on time, or to stay home on weekends?

Professional workers are usually measured on output; assembly line workers are measured on the clock, and we unfortunately do not have many of those left. The sick day problems I usually run into are on the opposite extreme; I can't get highly competitive workers to take sick days or vacation days. We have to keep encouraging people to consume their vacation time, or simply take off when they are sick. Someone sitting at their desk with a head cold is not going to produce the kind of quality you want. It is often better to get them recharged and rested for the next big push.

You cannot believe the abuse of sick pay and FMLA.

Perhaps I am just a bit old fashioned, but wouldn't pregnancy be sort of an obvious condition. What are they doing; going on leave without filing for insurance coverage? It sounds like your gripe would be better addressed by changing FMLA then by going after employee medical records.

Competition and reward is the best way to fix all of these problems. If you can't get that past your union, then it doesn't much matter whether you have the worker's body physically there or not.

It's interesting that most companies don't have the problem that your s-i-l mentions. None I've ever worked for.

I wonder if perhaps that the company in question and perhaps the front line management is so awful that the employees have no regard for their jobs. It sounds to me like this company has very serious morale problems. Maybe management should take a long hard look at the workplace environment and their own effectiveness.