Sick leave agreement

Sick days are understood for physical illness, as well as mental health. They can be used to take care of yourself, but also if you need to take care of others who are ill. 

Taking a sick day is based on trust.

As freelancers, we are not usually entitled to get any sick leave. This is bullshit. 
We aim to cover a minimum of sick leave, however, we very much encourage you to look into the healthcare system where you live and the possibility to get health insurance if needed. This is especially important for possible long term illness. 

For people working on a short-term contract

Anyone who works a minimum of 10 days for the collective is able to claim sick pay. 
We cover 1 day of sick pay for every 10 days of work. No justification is asked. 

If necessary and possible, we will rearrange the work and/or timeline accordingly. 

For people who are part of the collective

We have decided to pool our sick days. For every 10 days of work (done by anyone in the collective), 1 day of sick leave is added to our collective pool of sick days. Pooling addresses the fact that we do not all have the same health and to alleviate the stress of having “enough sick days”. 

Collective members are welcome to use the collective sick days when they are ill until they have recovered. You can and should, of course, take the time you need to get better. No justification is asked, it is based on trust. 

If you are ill for more than a week, we ask you to briefly share the list of tasks that you had on your radar with your team, and note which ones are urgent and should/could be passed on. 

Keeping track

We have a spreadsheet dedicated to our work days, care days and sick days. You should log when you take a sick day. 

The sick days are not paid days that we add on top of our normal work days, but are included within the agreed number of work days (and within the agreed salary). If sick days are not used within a given year they disappear (they are neither remunerated nor cumulative beyond the year).  

While we encourage the use of these days to support strong mental health, they should be used when feeling ill, not as a holiday (see holiday policy).

Longer-term illness

For long-term illness (over a month), we may have to assess what makes most sense for the person ill, the rest of the team, the project and our commitment to funders. This will be reassessed on a case by case basis. 

We ask you – if possible – to be upfront with how long you think you might be ill. 

Here are questions that we encourage the collective’s internal support team, the person’s team and the person ill to explore (together): 

Internal support team: 

• Can the ill person receive financial support through health insurance? 
• Is their condition work-related or does the work they do at the collective affect it negatively? 
• Does their absence or condition affect other team members, and if yes, how? 
• Would they like to stay involved with the collective’s work for the coming time, and if yes, how? 
• Are there any tasks they would like to continue doing, or do they prefer to log off completely? 

Person’s team : 

• Can we rework the timeline of that person’s tasks?
• Shall we reduce the expectations/ambition of a project?
• Do we need to hire someone else to finalize a project?