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Labor and Employment Law
Everything important to know about sick days and days of isolation
Every worker is absent from work sometimes due to illness or as has happened quite a bit in the last year, due to the need to go into isolation.
The law protects these workers through the accrued right to sick days and isolation days.
Instructions
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Insulation
Sick days
Adv. Shlomo Jakubowicz, in collaboration with Zap Legal
Monday, 05 July 2021, 10:22 Updated: 10:29
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Family in isolation (Photo: ShutterStock)
Every employee accumulates sick days during his work. Sick days accrue for each working month, up to a maximum of 90 sick days per year. Eligibility to take advantage of sick days is conditional on a medical certificate signed by a doctor, which includes a breakdown of the period during which the employee is unable to get to work due to the illness.
In which cases can the entitlement to sick days be used?
There are four situations in which the right to sick days can be exercised:
1. Complete incapacity. When the employee's health condition does not allow him to perform his work at all.
2. Partial incapacity. When an employee has a medical disability that prevents him from performing part of his job and the employer has not offered him another suitable job that he can perform as long as he is disabled.
3. Sick days can also be used to treat a sick family member (parent, child or spouse).
4. During the corona period, even workers who are required to go into isolation due to possible exposure to a verified patient can take advantage of the sick days accrued to them. As of October 2020, this eligibility has been regulated in legislation regarding isolation days. We will explain this later in the article.
What are the protections that the law provides for an employee who exercises his right to sick days?
Employers must not try to deprive you of their right to be absent from work during sick days, no matter how stressed the period in the office or factory. They must not do so with temptations and certainly not with threats of dismissal or denial of rights.
Therefore, while you are lying in bed with fever or helping a sick family member the employer must not fire you (unless the workplace is closed or you received notice of dismissal before you fell ill), and he must not start dismissal proceedings or use your absence as a ground for such proceedings. In addition, the law requires the employer to pay sick pay.
What is the amount of sick pay?
The law states that for the first day of absence, the employee is not entitled to payment. For the second and third day, the employee is entitled to a payment equal to 50 percent of the regular daily wage, and from the fourth day, the employer must pay sick pay in the amount of the full wage.
To read more from Mr. Jacobovici: 7 main rights of pregnant working women >>
What do you do when ends eligibility for sickness?
If you were saved already all sick days accrued to your right and you are still sick or need insulation, you can ask the employer to continue to pay you sick pay on account Future sick days. If the employer refuses, you can request to go on unpaid leave.
Is it possible to redeem unused sick days?
By law, an employee cannot redeem with money the sick days that he has not used throughout the year, unless he is subject to a collective agreement that provides otherwise.
The same is true for redemption of sick days when you leave the workplace.
Also, accrued sick days cannot be transferred from one employer to another.
What are isolation fees and what is the difference between them and sickness benefits?
When the corona was just beginning to spread, workers who had to be absent from work due to isolation (theirs or their children’s) were able to take advantage of the sick days they had accrued and were entitled to sick pay for those days.
As of October 29, 2020, sickness benefits were replaced by isolation fees and the concept of isolation days was introduced.
For each period of isolation in which the employee is absent from work, he is entitled to receive isolation allowance from the second day.
If the employee is interested, he can also receive payment on the first day, at the expense of the vacation days he has accumulated.
Adv. Shlomo Jakubowicz (Photo: PR)
Is there a link between the vaccine for corona and entitlement to isolation fees?
This question arises even more so in the last weeks of the spread of the Indian variant among children and even among vaccinated adults. About a week ago, the Ministry of Finance published a new bill, which seeks to extend the existing arrangement of the isolation fee until September 2021, and which addresses the possibility of receiving a vaccine that did not exist before.
The new proposal stipulates that an employee who has not been vaccinated, and will be absent from work due to the obligation to isolate, will be entitled to half of the amount of the isolation fee received by vaccinated workers. In addition, only vaccinated parents will be eligible for solitary confinement if their children owe solitary confinement. However, eligibility will be retroactive as early as January 2021.
Do isolation days decrease from the balance of sick days?
The law stipulates that the employer may deduct up to four sick days accrued for the benefit of the employee for the entire period of isolation.
That is, even if the isolation was longer than four days, the employer cannot deduct additional sick days and is required to pay the isolation fee in full.
Shlomo Jakubowicz Law Office specializes in labor law and the representation of employers and employees.
Phone: 077-2306123
Article courtesy of Zap Legal The
information presented in the article does not constitute legal advice or a substitute for it and does not constitute a recommendation for taking proceedings or avoiding proceedings.
Anyone who relies on the information in the article does so at his own risk
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