Sick leave and labour laws
 

Someone I know is a health professional who does not get ANY time off whatsoever. No vacation days for a year, and she works through some relatively incapacitating illnesses that are non-infectious i.e. diarrhea, nausea, physical injury etc.. Sometimes it is not even safe for her to drive to work in the condition that she is in. She has thankfully not gotten the flu yet, I'm not sure what her choices would be if that occurred. Her employer is a private company.

Obviously if she is hospitalized for severe injury then there is no choice. My question is, if you were very sick, but not sick enough to be hospitalized (such as severe food poisoning, flu) but sick enough for a doctor's note... is it legal to fire someone on that grounds? Can some sort of grievance be filed if that happens? She is very fearful of losing this job because of a new mortgage, location and an otherwise great working environment. It's just that for the past half a year she has basically been given a very strict warning to never take any days off, and there does not seem to be any provision for even the occasional, or even one-off sick day.

Any BC labour law experts on here?

I've already read that long ago and it does not answer the very specific nature of my question, but thanks.

If you want help with this we will need more info..

Is she a FT worker? (how many hours/week)

When I worked in the warehouse/labour industry, they have some tricky ass loopholes to get you to work FT, without vacations, with no benefits, and no sick days.. So if this is such a "specific nature" we need the "specific details."

It is illegal, under part 2 of the labour code, to dismiss someone for a bona fide illness. As long as she can produce a doctors note, if requested by the employer within two weeks of returning to work (in writing!), then they cannot dismiss her for being sick.

Labour Code wont apply here unless she is in a Union.. The ESA is the only way..