You know, it has been a pet peeve of mine for a while that most companies have a lax or non-existent policy of coming to work ill. This TB thing has got me thinking about just how much communicable diseases affect our economy. From my experience, which numbers in the thousands, most people are willing to come to work sick in order to avoid using up earned time off, or lose pay, or some such event. I have yet to see in any employee handbook where someone with a communicable disease such as a cold or flu, or something worse, would be penalized for coming in to work and exposing their co-workers to infection. I suppose that in many cases people may not realize they are infected and contagious before real symptoms start to manifest. In some cases symptoms may not come on until a considerable time after contagion is likely.

However, for people to come to work running a fever, with a running nose and a nasty cough or sneezing that is obviuosly not from hayfever just isn't right. Unfortunately, many companys have policies that combine sick time with accumulating vacation time, so that the fewer days you take off work due to illness, the more time you get to go play. That policy seems to be wholly counter-productive. What that tells me is if you are willing to come in to work even when you aren't feeling good, regardless of the consequences to others, then the company will reward your diehard effort by letting you take that time off to go play later on. I think it stinks, because if I catch a cold or flu from someone who was inconsiderate enough to come to work sick, then I either take the time off or perpetuate the same transgression onto others. Of course, the company's view is that you were likely to catch it anyways, since it is obviously circulating. What if it is something more serious, though, like meningitis, or chicken pox, or mono, or hepatitis, or TB? What if someone brings that to work because they don't know that's what they have, and they don't want to take the time off?

See, if you establish a policy of non-enforcement, then it is only a matter of time before something much more serious hits the workforce. People will take advantage of whatever chance you give them, usually at the expense of others.

I've taken the issue up with my company's Health and Safety Managers, and my argument was that if I caught something at work then according to the law I should be entitled to a Labor and Industries time loss claim, just as if I had been injured on the job. Their position was that they would contest the claim unless it was apparent that the illness was contracted from work, meaning they considered a cold or flu to be too common to exclude outside exposure. So the bottom line is we are stuck with a lame policy that only works to the benefit of the company up until something really bad happens. Like I said, it stinks. There shouldn't be any exclusions at work, there certainly aren't any in the regulations. I know what happens when someone is careless at work and it results in someone being injured, it ought to be the same if you come to work sick and expose others who then get sick.

Just my rant for the day.