Porters and cleaners at Croydon’s Mayday Hospital are to stage a protest later this month after their employer – private NHS contractor G4S – stopped paying covid positive hospital workers’ occupational sick pay.
Patients at risk: porters and cleaners are not receiving covid sick pay
The employers refusing to pay staff for covid absences has led to the GMB union to call on the Croydon NHS Trust to cancel G4S’s contract because of the massive risk to public health that the pay policy creates.
With staff – many of them on very low wages – being denied sick pay, many feel forced to come into the hospital when they have symptoms of the potentially deadly virus because they cannot afford to take time off to self-isolate.
“Our hard-working members are sick and tired of being abused and exploited by G4S,” GMB spokesperson Helen O’Conner said.
“They are on poverty pay and to add insult to injury they are being denied wages if they come down with covid.
“These members have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic at great risk to themselves and their families and they are demanding fair sick pay so that they do not put patients at risk from cross-infection.
“If G4S is not willing to ensure that their staff and patients are as safe as possible during a pandemic, they cannot continue to hold the contract.
‘Insult’: GMB’s Helen O’Connor
“We are now calling on Croydon NHS Trust to take this contract back in-house and pay these workers the sick pay they need and deserve.”
The GMB protest will be staged outside what is sometimes referred to as Croydon University Hospital on London Road from noon on Monday, January 31.
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