MOBILE phone company Orange last night rejected claims that it is targeting staff who take time off sick.

Union officials claim they have seen a flood of complaints from workers at the company's North-East call centres.

The ITSC union said it was growing increasingly concerned over disciplinary proceedings against call centre workers who suffer ill health.

Orange, which employs about 5,000 workers in Darlington, Peterlee and North Tyneside, has previously been subject to complaints from staff who say its sickness policy is too harsh.

However, company officials say it is a model employer that deals sympathetically with staff health problems.

Orange does not recognise trade unions, but a number of staff at its call centres have received representation from the ITSC.

ITSC divisional officer Bernard Pike said: "We are having a constant stream of disciplinary issues at Orange usually related to sickness.

"It is difficult to understand how a disciplinary warning assists people suffering stress or anxiety, but that appears to be consistent with company policy at Orange."

Middlesbrough based ITSC organiser Mike Jones said Orange's sickness policy was "not working as it should" and seemed to be used as a tool to discipline people and not to explore the root cause of the problem.

A spokeswoman for Orange said: "We take the well-being of our employees very seriously and continue to invest in a wide range of occupational health activities.

"These include a company physician and qualified occupational health team who are on hand to give advice to managers and staff to deal appropriately with different sickness absence situations.

"Like many organisations, Orange has a structured procedure in place to deal appropriately with a small number of cases of habitual absence and such cases are dealt with through these procedures based upon the individual merit of each case."