My two peneth worth.

It's in the interests of the employer not to have huge swathes of their work force down in one hit due to swine flu and they should be monitoring their employees health and sending people home who shouldn't be there.
I should however point out that my view is probably biased by the fact that I work for a fairly large company so having a few people out (as opposed to 25% +) isn't a major problem. The situation is obviously different if it's a small company as they are less able to soak up staff absences. However, they have to balance that against the effect of one typhoid Mary bringing down the rest of the staff in one fel swoop.

If I was in the same possition as steve74 I would be tempted to ask the boss if they were sure they should be there but it's really their line manager or the occupational health department (if you have such a thing) who should be stepping in.

At the end of the day the credit crunch is obviously affecting the situation as people are affraid for their job security and/or cash flow. This is probably pushing people who probably should stay off into going into work which is going to actually make the problem worse.
At the same time however, the diagnosis by phone/web is obviously open to misdiagnosis and abuse so I suspect that a fair few management types are questioning how many people who phone in sick with 'swine flu' actually have it which may in turn exacerbate the thing I said above about job/cash flow security.

I know that the Health and Safety at Work Act is always used by employees when it works in their favour, and often ignored when it doesn't, but would this cover someone knowingly coming to work with an infectious disease?

We've had a fair few people in the office get it (or have family members have it) and it's mandatory 5 days with a review after that.

Edd

Firstly ask yourself this; were it any other infection (ie. the common cold) would you be so worried?
As linux_user states, it could be that income is ahead of his care for you – that (and I would prefer to believe) or he perhaps feels guilty for shirking work given he’s “only” got the flu and would rather you lot not suffer the workload alone…
No it wouldn’t – if you feel strongly about something company hierarchy should play no part.
As above – especially because:
– although I would take the chance to chat with your top-line “boss” as to why you entertain middle management roles if you’re such a skeletal workforce.
Go to HR or the office manager, or your line manager – whoever is your normal “turn to point” in the organogram.
Yes. It’s a nasty batch of influenza – plenty of people die every year at the hands of the regular flu but that never makes the press… think about it.
I’ve a limited understanding of biology – but is it not our dependence on pharmaceuticals that cause these virulent new strains forming? Prevention is better than cure.
Exactly.

EDIT No, it was nothing to do with post-size, it was the stylised " I'd inherited from my copy&paste into Word multi-quote session.

Wore a mask when I came into the office this morning. When asked why I replied that I didn't want to affect the rest of the staff with my 'virus'.

Assumption complete, I apparently have SF but they're not sure if I've got the mutated version or just the bog standard one I didn't know I worked with so many doctors...

Al

i agree with Snowy.

Meh.

And consequently, moi aussi then. I don't remember that happening before

I'd be more worried if it was H5N1 since that has a 60% mortality rate.

Hmmn, H5N1, tastes like chicken.