• AMONG the lowest paid workers in the UK are those who work in care homes and those who provide home care to vulnerable people.

Grossly undervalued in terms of skill and responsibility, most of these workers receive only the legal minimum. It is also likely they will be on zero-hours contracts and have no claim to occupational sick pay should they become ill and unable to work.

If these workers were employed directly by local authorities, such terms and conditions would not be allowed. But, often as not, they are employed by private companies which are then contracted by local authorities to provide the care services.

Some councils – Islington among them – have sought to make things better through requiring contractors to pay the London Living Wage; at £11.95 an hour. This is an improvement on the government’s statutory minimum wage, currently set at £10.42 an hour but increasing to £11 from next April.

Staff employed directly by the local authority who cannot work due to illness receive occupational sick pay from their employer.

In only a small number of instances do staff employed in contracted services receive any sick pay from the employer. Instead they must claim Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).

This is only paid if an individual earns more than £123 a week and not until they have been sick for three days. At £109.40 a week, it amounts to about £1.10 per hour in the first week and £2.73 per hour in subsequent weeks. The hourly rate of SSP is therefore less than a quarter of the hourly rate of the London Living Wage.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the main obstacles to people self-isolating when unwell was a lack of sick pay, thus increasing the spread of the virus within workplaces.

Whether on the Statutory Minimum Wage or London Living Wage, quite simply, people could not afford to stay at home. So they dismissed signs of illness and did not take tests.

We all speak of the pandemic as if it has ended but the reality is, it has not. Increasingly we hear of new variants of Covid-19 which may be able to spread more efficiently and potentially cause severe illness. But now that we are in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, it is even less likely that people can afford to be sick.

Next month, upon the conclusion of a competitive tendering process, Islington Council, will award two block home care contracts – each amounting to £170million to, as yet unknown, private companies. This is despite the council having previously agreed with the staff trade unions that where possible contracted out services would be brought back in-house.

Over 10 years ago the council signed up to my trade union’s ethical care charter; this incorporates the following statement: “All home care workers will be covered by an occupational sick pay scheme to ensure that staff do not feel pressurised to work when they are ill in order to protect the welfare of their vulnerable clients.”

In 2022 the staff manifesto, a document agreed between the Labour group and the council’s staff trade unions, contained the following statement: “We know that sickness policy is a key pillar to protect against Covid-19 and other illnesses. We will continue to ensure full sick pay for council staff and will seek to work with contractors and agencies that also pay full sick pay to their workers.”

Despite this the council is not requiring any firm commitment to pay occupational sick pay from organisations tendering for the home care contracts. It states that getting organisations to pay it is merely an “ambition”.

We have been asking the council to reconsider this matter as we believe the right thing to do is to provide sick pay.

Staff deserve decent terms and conditions and whether we are speaking of Covid-19, flu or even the common cold, the health of vulnerable people should be of paramount importance.

ANDREW BERRY
Islington UNISON
Labour Link Officer