Intent

The West Egg Group provides the following program to assist employees who are absent from the workplace due to personal illness or injury, specifically addressing sick leave during a global pandemic. Employees have a responsibility to make every effort to ensure that they return to work in a state of health and well-being which will enable them to perform their job to the best of their abilities and protect the public in accordance with public health guidelines. 

Guidelines

Entitlement

Employees of The West Egg Group are entitled to three days of unpaid, job-protected personal sick leave per year and three (3) days of unpaid, job-protected family sick leave per year. The West Egg Group does NOT differentiate from the 3 personal days and the 3 family days, employees have a total of 6 PEL days per year, however, management reserves the right to require a medical note whenever it is deemed necessary, this will be at management’s discretion. 

Any days used will count against the employee’s entitlement to sick leave under the Employment Standards Act, 2000. This leave is unpaid and any days not used may not carry over to the following year. If an employee takes a portion of a day as a day under sick leave, The West Egg Group will consider the employee to have taken one full day of that leave.

Eligibility

Employees may take sick leave under the following circumstances:

• An employee suffers a personal illness or injury; 
• An employee must attend a personal medical emergency; 
• An employee is experiencing symptoms of Covid-19;
• An employee has tested positive for Covid-19.

Eligibility for and use of sick leave shall have no effect on the employee’s entitlement to any other protected leave under the ESA.

In accordance with the Employee Standards Act, 2000 a sick leave may be converted to a medical leave if the employee is required to be away from work for a consecutive period of more than 5 working days, supporting medical documentation in these situations is required.

Call-In Procedure

• Employees must notify their Supervisor or Operations Coordinator of their intention to use sick leave or of any Covid-19 like symptoms being experienced.
• Employees must also submit their PEL Day request via the Company’s Humanity scheduling platform, making a note in the submission of the reason for sick leave as stated above.
• Notification of the intention to take sick leave must be provided as soon as is reasonably possible, but not less than 30 minutes before the start of the employee’s scheduled shift.

Evidence

• The West Egg Group may require that an employee who takes sick leave provide evidence that is reasonable under the circumstances of the reason for which they are taking the leave (including a medical note).
• Failure by an employee to provide appropriate evidence related to the use of the leave when requested by management may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.
• If the sick leave taken is due to Covid-19 symptoms, the employee must submit a negative Covid-19 test result BEFORE returning to work.

Positive Covid-19 Test Result

If an employee experiences Covid-19 symptoms and tests positive for Covid-19 they must follow Covid-19 guidelines in accordance with public health. 

The employee will NOT be able to return to work for a period of a minimum of 14 days from the date of the positive test result and/or as long as the employee is still experiencing symptoms.

The Company will require that the employee provide a negative Covid-19 test result in order to return to work.

Sources

Covid-19 Public Health Information

Covid-19 Have Symptoms or Been Exposed

Covid-19 Orders and Bylaws

Covid-19 Official Statements from Government Officials