Limit Coronavirus spread with paid sick leave, TUC says
Limit Coronavirus spread with paid sick leave, TUC says
News brief - 28/02/20 View this email in your browser
Limit Coronavirus spread with paid sick leave, TUC says
Concerns over the spread of the potentially deadly Coronavirus have exposed the public health dangers surrounding the UK's existing Statutory Sick Pay legislation.
Statutory Sick Pay is just £94.25 a week. Although many employers are more generous than this lawful minimum, some will not provide full pay to a worker when they are ill. Further, workers are not entitled to Statutory Sick Pay for the first three days of their absence, and if they earn less than the £118 a week Statutory Earnings Limit, they are not eligible to receive any sick pay at all.
The TUC has called on the government to ensure that workers are paid from day one of their illness, highlighting how the current rules motivate people to turn up to their jobs when they're ill, risking the spread of diseases like Coronavirus.
General Secretary of the TUC, Frances O'Grady, spoke out after JD Wetherspoon - which employs 45,000 people, often part-time, and often on low pay - officially briefed its workforce that they would not be paid if they were ordered into quarantine to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
"The threat of coronavirus shows why sick pay should be a day-one right for everybody," O'Grady said. "It's not right that millions of UK workers miss out on this protection. The government must ensure everyone gets statutory sick pay, however much they earn."
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