Czech workers could lose sick pay for first three days under new proposal

Employees in Czechia could once again receive no pay for the first three days they are off sick under a proposal gaining support within the governing coalition.

Labor and Social Affairs Minister Aleš Juchelka of ANO said Sunday that he was open to restoring the country's former three-day waiting period, known in Czech as karenční doba. The Motorists party plans to submit legislation bringing the system back.

The change would reverse rules in place since July 2019, under which employees receive reduced wage compensation from their employer beginning with the first working day of an officially recognized illness.

For employees, the practical difference would be significant: if the former system is restored in its previous form, someone who falls ill and stays home for three days could receive no wage compensation for that period.

Under the current system, an employee who is temporarily unable to work receives wage compensation from their employer during the first 14 days of sick leave. The compensation is based on 60 percent of adjusted average earnings and applies to working days or scheduled shifts.

From the 15th calendar day, responsibility shifts to the state sickness insurance system, which pays sickness benefits.

The proposal being discussed would restore a waiting period at the beginning of that process. The first three days of illness would no longer be compensated, while payments would begin afterward.

The details have not yet been finalized. Sports Minister Boris Šťastný of the Motorists is expected to put forward the proposal, and Juchelka said the government would first need to see its precise wording.

"We'll see what the proposal looks like, but the idea isn't bad," Juchelka said on Czech Television's Poledne s Moravcem program. "Employers are calling for it."

The Finance Ministry estimates that Czech employers will spend between CZK 8.5 billion and CZK 9 billion this year compensating employees for the first three days of sickness alone. Because employers rather than the state currently cover those days, Juchelka said removing the payments would not directly produce savings for the state budget.

Employers have also pointed to rising use of sick leave. The number of cases increased 88 percent between 2019 and 2022, according to a 2023 analysis by the Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Crafts.

The association linked part of that increase to the abolition of the waiting period, although it acknowledged that health problems connected with the Covid-19 pandemic may also have contributed.

Czechia previously had a three-day waiting period, meaning employees received no wage compensation at the beginning of an illness. It was abolished in July 2019 by the government led by ANO's Andrej Babiš and the Social Democrats, with support from the Communists.

Restoring paid sick leave from the first day had been one of the Social Democrats' principal demands when negotiating their coalition with ANO. At the time, supporters argued that the waiting period encouraged employees to work while ill or use vacation days rather than lose income.

Trade unions are making the same argument against its proposed return. Josef Středula, head of the ČMKOS umbrella union organization, called restoring the waiting period "a step backward" and argued that workers should not be financially penalized for becoming sick.

"If we want people to return to work healthy and able to perform at their best, we must allow them to actually recover when they are sick, rather than forcing them to go to work while they are sick," Středula said.

For now, nothing changes for employees: the existing sick-pay rules remain in force, and no legislation restoring the three unpaid days has yet been approved.

But Juchelka's support means the proposal now has backing from the minister responsible for Czech labor policy, setting up a renewed debate over whether the cost of the first days of an illness should fall on employers, or on workers themselves.