Short sick-leave duration cutbacks and control over sick leave processes

Abstract

The short sick-leave and its proper lenght of time is one of the most controversial issues of this benefit. On one hand, it was created to guarantee a good worker protection but, on the other hand, it must try to meet the deadlines established by the current legislation. However, and despite of this statement of good intent, after the legislative reforms which have taken place since 2005 to 2014, the Spanish legislator has restricted, even more, the requirements to access to the protection provided by the Seguridad Social (Spanish National Health Service) benefits. Seguridad Social was originally meant to shelter workers from difficult situations and, nevertheless, the temporary disability period has been shortened, dramaticaly affecting critical aspects as different stays or relapse processes.

All these reforms are an obvious effort the legislator is carrying out to protect the benefit against what he fears the most, the fraud. Instead of seeking the protection of workers when they need it, the legislator insists once and again on cutting the duration of short sick-leave benefit or taking away competences from medical professionals to hand over them to several hired agencies to act as liason with the Seguridad Social.