Absurdity

My husband has been deathly ill for 3 weeks, and has been refusing to go to the hospital.  Then I found out why.  If he calls in sick to work, for any reason, he gets an "occurance".  6 occurances in a year and you are done.  He already has 4.  Anyway, I finally convinced him to go the ER on Wednesday, and it turns out he has pneumonia.  Now I just need to rant about the absurdity that someone can be fired because they are genuinely ill.  What if he had been disabled in a horrible car crash?  Even with Pneumonia, he was breathing really shallow and he drives a forklift.  Imagine he's at work and passes out.  Worse, passing those germs on to his coworkers.  I would think it is a liability for him to go in when his lungs aren't functioning properly, but his union/employer is black and white.  I don't think he will get fired, even though he took Thursday and Friday off under doctor's orders, but he will get at least one more occurance.  Just the idea of it sounds so absurd to me.  How can it be legal to fire someone because they are sick?  What kind of country is this?