wife ill with chest infection, boss with hump

[the_tones_guy]

Hi all,

The Mrs has been ill for over a week and asked me to come home yesterday, she went to Drs as she's had Pneumonia before and had to go into hospital, they didn't want this to develop.

So, she has to rest and not go out, which means I have to stay off and look after both her and the children (5 and 10).

My boss thinks I am taking the P, which I never do and I am dissapointed with his attitude.

Anyway, following is his reply to my 'I have to stay home (but will still work) and look after the wife and kids':

It’s about the rules on what happens when someone has time off that isn’t their own illness. To avoid a precedent (and me losing staff every time someone in their family is ill or whatever) this should officially go down as holiday.

ENDS.

I thought fathers had some rights when stuff like this happens?

Am I wrong?

[Ell-enn]

Hi there, it sound like you are having an anxious time with your wife being ill and your boss being unsympathetic.
The Employment Rights Act gives every employee the right to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time of work to help when a dependant falls ill . In your case the dependent will be your wife (and children). Usually employers are reasonable in these cases and will allow the leave unpaid (or as holiday at the employees request). You cannot be forced to take the leave as holiday.

I hope things improve soon.

Kind Regards

Ell-enn

[the_tones_guy]

Okay thanks for that, annoying though.

[cal37]

Just to add "reasonable amount of unpaid time of work” is not defined. Basically you can have time off to deal with an emergency and to make arrangements for a carer.

There have been a few ET cases where it’s been considered two days to be enough to make alternative carer arrangements.

To summarise, you can not expect or demand a week, two weeks etc etc to look after your wife, kids, and the law was made to deal with an emergency only.

[diskmandave]

Just to add to what has already been posted, the dependancy leave regulations allow for this kind of situation without any qualifying or notice period. However, you are lucky in the respect that your boss thinks the time should be treated as holiday time as there is no right to be paid in this situation and it may be he is a little ignorant of the law.

Leave for family reasons gives employees the right to reasonable unpaid time off to deal with family emergencies involving parents, children, a spouse or co-habitee or anyone who looks to the employee for assistance. A family emergency is defined as sickness, accident, criminal injury, death, funerals, absence of the carer for a family member or serious problems at the child's school.

Also, and without looking it may be worth looking into weather or not the Work and Families Act 2006 covers this kind of situation.

Hope she gets better soon!