IT is deeply worrying that more employers are going down the route of scrapping sick pay for employees off work for short periods of time.

As well as unscrupulous private sector employers introducing such policies, we now find they are being recommended in the public sector, with the public accounts committee recommending prison officers should not be paid for the first three days of sickness.

Such archaic policies will result in members of staff who are clearly ill dragging themselves in to work because they cannot afford to lose pay. Surely having sick employees in the workplace will only spread illness among the workforce and reduce productivity.

If you compare short-term sickness with other European countries you will find Britain has a relatively low level of time lost to short absences. The only thing such policies will achieve is the continuing demoralisation of the workforce, and an increase in long-term illness as employees drag themselves into the workplace while ill.

Andrew Collingwood,

Turners Croft, York.

Updated: 10:37 Friday, January 21, 2005