‘Humiliating’ sick day policy slammed: ‘This is insane’

There’s been an outpouring of anger after a high-profile commentator revealed his hard line approach to taking time off work.

Conservative American commentator Matt Walsh has made a living out of pushing people’s buttons - but this might be his sickest (cough) take yet.

“This will be unpopular, especially with younger people, but you shouldn’t be using sick days,” Walsh said on a recent podcast episode.

“I’ve used sick days maybe twice in seven years. And in both of those cases because I literally lost my voice and I couldn’t speak. You cant blame me for that - it’s impossible to do a podcast when you can’t speak.

“But generally speaking … sick days are for children. They’re for kids in school who are trying to stay home so they don’t have to take a test that day.

“With rare exception, taking a sick day as an adult should be pretty embarrassing for you. Ringing your boss and saying ‘sorry, I can’t come in today, my tummy hurts’ is humiliating.

“You need to be at work. Adults don’t have time to be sick.”

Footage of Walsh making the statement went viral on X this week and led to an outpouring of anger.

Podcaster Matt Walsh says adults should be too embarrassed to take sick days. Picture: X

A Twitter user whose bio said they were a respiratory care practitioner said Walsh’s stance was dangerous.

“Not all of us make YouTube videos,” he wrote. “If I’m sick and I come to work, I expose vulnerable patients to a potentially lethal illnesses. For example, if I had a respiratory illness and an ALS patient contracted it, it could be fatal for them.”

“Matt Walsh has mostly good takes. He’s had some painfully bad ones. I can tell you this, I do not want some sicko coughing their disease all over me at work,” wrote another.

“A guy who sits on his ass all day doing a podcast, lecturing people about how they should go to work even when sick. Oh the irony,” a third replied.

A fourth wrote: “Normalizing working yourself to death because you’re too prideful to take a sick or mental health day is absolutely INSANE.”

“Lmfaooooo what? A co-worker who use to go for dialysis died and another died from a heart attack due to overwork. There’s NO WAY I’m risking my life for anyone that doesn’t give a f if I dropped dead,” added another.

But others offered their personal experience with showing up for work instead of taking sick leave - a practise known as sickness presenteeism behaviour.

Podcaster Matt Walsh says adults should be embarrassed to take sick days. Picture: iStock

Journalist Benjamin Ryan, who contributes to the New York Times, said he only took one week off while undergoing chemotherapy.

“Not to side with Matt Walsh as he boasts not needing to stay home sick, but when I was undergoing chemotherapy, I only didn’t work for the seven-day peak of the side effects, when I was so all consumingly ill, it was all I could do to survive every second of the day,” Ryan tweeted.

“I’m self-employed now, but have spent most of my life working for others,” another person wrote. “Calling in sick did always feel humiliating to me, and it only happened a couple times. I’m not sure whether Walsh is right that it SHOULD feel that way, but it 100% did to me.”

Sick days in Australia - what are my rights?

According to government agency Fair Work, full-time Aussie employees are entitled to 10 sick days per year.

But they need to give their employer reasonable evidence - most often in the form of a doctor’s certificate - if it is asked for.

You can take sick leave if you have an illness, injury or an unexpected emergency, per Health Direct.

“This also includes stress, a mental health condition or illness because of pregnancy,” the website states.

“You can also take sick leave if you have caring responsibilities for an immediate family member or somebody living in your household.”