Absent French workers told to work from their sickbed
French employees will be encouraged to work from home while on sick leave under a plan to curb an epidemic of absenteeism.
Doctors will be asked to prescribe le teletravail (teleworking) as an option for workers who are neither too ill to do anything nor fit enough to report to the workplace, under proposals backed by the government.
France is suffering a growing sick-note problem, with private sector workers taking 17 sick days a year and civil servants, who are unsackable, staying away for an average of 26 days.
The home-working plan is aimed at the private
The private sector had awarded itself an ‘‘extra day off’’ with its mounting absences over the past four years.
Edouard Philippe
sector, where employers benefit from the state social security fund partially compensating them for man-hours lost to sickness.
Absenteeism costs the French economy euros 108 billion (NZ$166b) a year, far more than in equivalent countries, according to an estimate by the Sapiens Institute, a private think tank.
Edouard Philippe, the prime minister, complained that the private sector had awarded itself an ‘‘extra day off’’ with its mounting absences over the past four years.
The report, ordered by Philippe, said: ‘‘The system is too binary. Doctors should be provided with options such as offering employees ‘work from home’ prescriptions as an alternative to the average doctor’s note suggesting total or partial rest.’’
Backing the idea of half-way sick leave last year, Philippe said that the scheme would focus on the seven per cent of absentees who were off for six months or more.
The proposals have, predictably, run into opposition from trade unions. The militant-left CGT, the biggest industrial union, said that family doctors were not qualified to prescribe work because they were ignorant of the nature of the patient’s professional activity.
International comparisons are complicated but if the average French worker takes about 23 days off, the Italians take 19, the Germans nine and Britons five, according to recent estimates. –