GWU sick leave proposal accepted

The government has accepted a proposal by the Public Service Section of the General Workers' Union over the way sick leave for industrial and technical workers should be calculated for the purpose of their pre-retirement leave, a GWU statement said.

Many of these employees were entitled to 15 days sick leave until December 1998 while others had been entitled to 30 days of sick leave, the union explained.

During negotiations on the collective agreement for the public service, the pre-retirement clause was calculated on the principle that every worker benefited from 30 days' annual sick leave.

In this way the sick leave of workers is calculated on the assumption that they were taking 30 days' leave when in reality before January 1999, the majority of them were not entitled to that amount.