The fallacy was that the TA policy was about the sick leave abusers. It's wasn't.

If they wanted to stop people from calling in sick, then well, so they could fly green slips, they could have just prohibited that practice. It's not that hard.

The problem is, they are so short, they need people to fly whenever they can.

That new TA policy was simply designed to intimidate people into coming to work when they normally wouldn't.