In the beginning there was Labor. And Labor was Paid in accord with its Production. And there was the concept Productivity of Labor. And it was Good.
And after Pandora's Box had been opened and the Apple had been bitten, there became employment. Employment was a Position given to a relative or friend who could then received Salaries. When Salaries were found insufficient for the desires of many, they were pumped up with Fringe Benefits. When some questioned the logic of Fringe Benefits for the masses of Employees, they were told it would result in Productivity. And the Snake was loose upon the land.
In the agrarian culture of our forefathers, the vast majority of our people worked to produce a good, which they then exchanged for other goods or for the medium known as money. As our culture developed and we began to need groups of people to produce goods, an increasing number of our people worked to produce a service necessary to provide other people with goods and other things they wanted done for them. Early employees could be paid for piecework, which represented their individual productivity. As society progressed, however, it became increasingly difficult to determine individual productivity. Social programs were then introduced to make sure employees would receive the necessities of life such as health care, life insurance for their dependents, and programs to insure they would not become indigent when they lost their ability to productive.
Two of these social programs were annual leave and sick leave. The philosophy behind annual leave was the need for a human being to rest from work. Although most employees had two days per week to them selves, those two days were found to be inadequate for mental and physical health – especially among those who performed repetitive actions and those working under stress of any kind. Annual Leave is meant to be used. The employer pays for it with the understanding the employee will use it and, as a result, be more productive. When the Virgin Islands Government had a Merit System, the employ lost unused Annual Leave if it was not used in a timely fashion. When the Merit System went by the boards, many employees simply did their thing during their normal paid days including off island travel. Some employees even had the temerity to request overtime for travel time outside of the Monday to Friday workweek – and received payment. Many Government "Leaders" managed to travel several times a week to a sister island accumulating airline mileage which they then used for free vacation travel with Administrative Leave taking the place of Annual Leave which they were accumulating for Lump Sum Payment upon retirement or separation. The bottom line is the fact Annual Leave is paid for by the employer so the employee will be able to be more productive to the advantage (quid pro quo) of the employer.
Sick Leave is definitely a privilege as opposed to a right. Labor, which does not labor, is not paid. If you do not produce a good, you cannot receive payment. Only employees are granted the benefit of Sick Leave – and that is to protect the other employees and clients in the work place. Sick Leave allows the ill employee to go home and keep their contagion to themselves. Sick Leave allows the employee to rest, recuperate, obtain medical care, what ever is necessary so they can return to full productivity as soon as possible. Sick Leave is not an economic gift! Sick Leave is to be used when necessary; and is not an economic good, asset, or entitlement. The Virgin Islands Government was most promiscuous when it allowed employees to accumulate Sick Leave and use it as toward time worked when filing for retirement. At four hours Sick Leave per pay period, the normal work year of 26 pay periods yields 104 hours Sick Leave which translates into 13 work days. Twenty years of banked Sick Leave yields some 260 work days or slightly over a year in retirement credit. On the other hand one may well ask the cost to the public of employees who are actually sick coming to work to preserve their Sick Leave, low productivity, raging contagion within the work unit and the public when the employee has a position which entails public contact. Imagine a Nurse sneezing on a critical care patient, a Policeman coughing on a tourist requesting information, a Finance clerk spreading germs on payroll checks which are distributed to hundreds of employees who handle them, pick up food with their hands and come down with the flu.
Kirk Grybowski
