About 15-20 years ago, they would be forced to work for IAS-es (state-owned farms) or CAPs (collective farms) and harvest maize. Now that they own the land, the need to harvest the crops is even higher. The trouble is that companies are no longer owned by the state, which did not care much about the avalanche of medical leaves solicited at the very time grapes were ripe to harvest.
The activity of large companies of Moldova is almost 20% lower during autumn due to large number of absentees.
"Part of the family doctors are readily signing medical certificates for fictitious illnesses, thus allowing patients owning large areas of arable land to harvest their autumn crops," says Liviu Sufaru, general manager of Tehnoton Iasi, a producer of electronics and home appliances.
The management of the Health Office, however, maintains it has been performing inspections, but cannot prove the respective certificates are fake.
Companies such as Tehnoton Iasi or Terom Iasi (a producer of wire and fibres) lose up to 10% of their employees between August and November, who resort to medical leaves to be able to go and work abroad or work the land they own, the representatives of the respective companies say.
"About 5% of our personnel are on sick leave. This month, 100 of our 2,000 employees have been absent. We spend about 500 million ROL monthly for those who bring medical certificates," says Dan Silvestru, human resources manager with Terom. The average net salary in this company stands at 4.5 million ROL.
Of the almost 800 employees of Tehnoton, about 200 employees were absent in August and September.
"It is practically a work force we are not using. We do not have the necessary human resources to conduct our activity at the optimal level. Some companies cancel the contracts they had signed with us or we register significant delays that are hurting our image," says Mihaela Berneaga, PR manager with Tehnoton.
Another explanation for this absenteeism is the employees' degree of civilisation, says Paul Butnariu, general manager with Constructii Feroviare (Railway Constructions) Moldova SA, a company with more than 1,400 employees.
He says that about 10% of employees do not come to work every month, with part of them providing medical certificates to justify their absence while others provide no reasons for not showing up at work.
"Absenteeism is a universal problem in the constructions industry because of the lack of a work discipline. We have got to the point where we hire people from prisons," Butnariu adds.
The companies requested the Iasi County Health Office to form a commission to investigate the issuance of medical certificates.
The Health Office officials say they have indeed received such requests from several institutions or companies, including the State Assets Resolution Agency, Service Dealer Automobile Daewoo, or Grupul de Constructii Est, but cannot prove beyond a doubt that the doctor in question committed fraud by issuing a medical certificate.
"We will check the doctors who issued a high number of such certificates. In case files and books are all right, there is nothing we can do. The doctors will be, however, warned and they will issue fewer certificates," says Florin Lunguleac, CJASI manager.
The companies have no hopes the situation will be definitely solved, either.
"We cannot go the doctors' places and investigate the issue ourselves, so we have resorted to this move. We have considered it is time we drew the attention to such an issue," says Berneaga.
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