Canada

Private sector people drag themselves into work sick because they don't have the same benefits! Hence the discrepancy.

I'm going to use my mom's company as an example. It's an employee owned company that offers stellar benefits. They get plenty of sick days.

HOWEVER, there is a huge caveat. If you miss any more than 2 days in a row by using sick days, you forfeit a certain percentage of your quarterly profit sharing.

So, it's really shocking (NOT) that people drag themselves into work so they don't get docked pay. When H1N1 went around, the whole office got sick because people would take the first 2 days and then try to make it in for half a day before they could take some more time off.

Totally defeats the purpose of having sick days. Sometimes you only need one day. Sometimes you need a whole week. My brother works for the same company and had day surgery, and he got around the 2 days of sick days thing by sticking a vacation day in between the 2 days (he took a whole week - 2 sick days, 1 vacation day, 2 sick days). However, he shouldn't have to do that.

This company is not alone in the private sector when it comes to stupid (or shitty) sick day policies. Also, many private companies don't have sick day policies if you are paid hourly. If you get sick, you don't get paid. So, people drag themselves in. Everyone should have the same amount of sick days as in gov't - with no strings attached on how you use them. period.