The following OpEd was published in the Calgary and Edmonton Sun
There’s a new epidemic striking major Canadian cities. It’ll make you hazy, make you lazy, and drive you crazy. No, it’s not Ebola, Swine Flu or H1N1. And it only seems to strike those of a certain occupation.
In fact, it’s apparently such a dangerous occupation that it results in those employees taking 88 per cent more sick days than most other Canadians. The diagnoses: working for the government.
Non-government workers in Alberta take 5.6 days off every year because they are sick. By contrast, the average government employee in Canada takes 10.5 days off for being under the weather.
And that’s just casual sick leave. Not long term disability.
The good news is that government employees in Alberta are healthier than their colleagues beyond our provincial borders, but still, deathly ill compared with the private sector.
To get a closer look, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) obtained detailed, department-by-department stats from the Government of Alberta, the City of Calgary and the City of Edmonton on just how sick their employees are.
Let’s start with Calgary. Relative to the province and Edmonton, Calgary employees are a pretty healthy lot, but they still take 21 per cent more sick leave than private sector employees at a cost of $32 million. If the average City of Calgary employee took sick leave at the same rate as employees in the private sector, it would save taxpayers nearly $7 million a year in gained productivity.
These figures do not include Calgary Police Services, who one might expect to take a few more legitimate days off for their health a year.
Interestingly, the city’s department of Community and Protective Services – which includes firefighters – takes off just 4.6 days a year. For those keeping count, that’s actually less than the private sector. In short, our firefighters – who have a significantly more hazardous job than most of us – actually pull Calgary’s sick day average down.
Edmonton’s municipal employees – excluding police – take 8.6 days a year, or 54 per cent more than non-government workers. That costs taxpayers $22.5 million a year. If those employees took sick leave at the private sector rate, it would save taxpayers almost $8 million a year.
Similar figures plague the provincial government. Alberta’s core public service takes an average of 8.5 days off a year, 42 per cent more than the private sector. That comes with a hefty price tag of $67 million. Taxpayers could gain a whopping $28 million a year in productivity if sick leave was taken at the same rate as the rest of us.
Those numbers do not include any teachers, doctors or nurses who might be exposed to a lot of sicknesses – just the core public service, which are mostly bureaucrats in offices.
There are only two logical conclusions to take away from these statistics: either working for the government is very bad for your health, or a significant number of people working for government are being a bit too casual with casual sick leave.
Of course, some of the usual apologists explain this away with baseless claims that most private sector schmucks are all traipsing off to work sick because our bosses will fire us at the first sign of weakness. We’ve all braved the odd day in our careers when we probably could have stayed home from work, but the same goes for government employees who aren’t playing hooky.
The answer isn’t to require a formal doctor’s note from every employee that misses a day. It’s to address the cultural problem within large swaths of government that considers sick leave to be a supplementary form of vacation that is an entitlement in contacts.
There is no easy cure to the Government Flu, but it starts with the right diagnosis.
