For total or partial compensation of their wages, employees on sick leave due to a work-related illness or accident have the right to compensation. This rule is valid for jobs in the private sector. This indemnity differs from case to case.
Do you have the flu, bronchitis or a bad fall? Is it a disease, an accident or an epidemic? In any case, your doctor may recommend that you stop working. You will then have to take a break for a few days. Since you are not working during this period, your income will surely be affected. What to do then to reduce the penalties applied to his salary? How can you earn compensation for a work stoppage? This article gives you a little more detail about it.
Summary
The conditions imposed to be entitled to a daily allowance
Of course, conditions are required of you to be able to benefit from a daily allowance during your work stoppage. But what are they?
This compensation is valid for work stoppages of less than 6 months. To benefit from it, the employee must have worked for at least 150 hours within the company during the 3 months preceding his work stoppage (this is only the minimum required, we can very well exceed this value). If this first condition is not met, he still has the chance to obtain his compensation by contributing up to €10,028.20 during the six months preceding his work stoppage (this amount is equivalent to 1015 times the value of the hourly minimum wage).
The employee will also have to inform his employer once he receives the work stoppage prescribed by an occupational doctor. The third part must be sent to the latter while the other two parts must arrive at his health insurance fund within the next 48 hours. Depending on the status and work policies of a company, the law partially or totally guarantees the salary of its employees in the event of work stoppage.
Calculation of the compensation paid by social security
Social security health insurance has been set up to provide for the salaries of employees in the event of temporary or serious illness. This branch provides a daily allowance to the employee on sick leave. A priori, the organization makes this first payment on the fourth day following the work stoppage (depending on the country, this period may be extended or shortened), i.e. 3 days of waiting period.
In most cases, this allowance is equal to half the daily wage that the employee is accustomed to earning. This basic salary is calculated on an average of the last three months before the stoppage. From January 1, 2018, the labor law caps this sum at 1.8 times the amount of the monthly minimum wage, i.e. approximately €2,697.25. Per day, you will therefore only have €44.34 as maximum compensation (unless the number of your dependent children is greater than or equal to 3).
If you have a large family, you will be entitled to a revaluation from the 31st day of your work stoppage and covers compensation for two thirds of your basic daily salary. However, your daily allowance will not exceed €59.12. These payments will only be valid for a maximum of three years. Beyond this period, social security will no longer be able to do anything for you.
What about the compensation paid by his employer?
The law favors employees on sick leave in this regard. Indeed, the law requires employees to offer a salary supplement to its employees if the latter have worked in the company for more than one year. The employer must cover 90% of the gross remuneration of his employee on sick leave during the 30 days following his sick leave. For the following 30 days, the indemnity will be reduced to two thirds of his gross remuneration. Payment often takes place on the 8th day of the employee’s absence.
In the case of employees with more than 5 years of seniority, the duration of this compensation must increase by 10 days and is calculated in increments of 5 years. We can therefore say that employees active in a company for 6 to 10 years receive 90% of their gross salaries during the 40 days following their stoppages and receive two-thirds for the following 40 days.
The conventional supplement provided by the employer
According to the analyzes of the law professor at the University of Brest, Marion Del Sol, the conventional complement would be a legal system put in place to ensure the protection of employees in the event of sick leave. This ideology has its share of truth. However, the conventional supplement does not cover the needs of the employee in its entirety. In addition, the indemnity will only be obtained on the 4th day of the stoppage. Moreover, it systematically excludes the case of employees with little seniority or low productivity.
Some companies provide a pension scheme for their employees. This plan allows the employee on sick leave to benefit from a daily allowance in advance. This compensation will then be reimbursed by social security to the employer. We will then speak of subrogation.
Tax and social regimes of the daily allowance
The daily allowances offered by social security in the context of a work stoppage often escape social security contributions. They are subject to financial institutions (CSG & CRDS) at the rate of 6.70% instead of the traditional 8%. As for wage supplements (conventional or legal), they are assimilated to elements of remuneration and therefore bear social charges.
We do not choose to be on sick leave. It is a phenomenon that happens by chance or bad luck. To reduce the burden on employees with a work stoppage, the law provides for a certain sum to be paid to them according to their contributions within the company. The more productive you have been during the last 3 or 6 months before quitting, the better you can get more per diems. Seniority also counts in the calculation of this indemnity.
