The major employers putting profit above people's lives
TDL, UPS, Amazon, Asos, Net-A-Porter and Sports Direct among those named and shamed.
News brief - 27/03/20 View this email in your browser
The major employers putting profit above people's lives
Following pressure from the unions, the government has taken sensible steps to protect jobs and wages across the UK. Adding to the Job Retention Scheme announced last week, the government will now cover furloughed PAYE workers' National Insurance and pension contributions as well as 80% of their wages. As announced last night, self-employed workers have now been granted similar support.
However, major employers are continuing to flout government guidelines and put workers - and the public - at risk. The unions' focus has turned to naming and shaming the worst offenders, including The Doctors' Laboratory, UPS, Amazon, Asos, Net-A-Porter and Sports Direct.
The Independent Workers of Great Britain union (IWGB) are taking legal action against The Doctors' Laboratory, which employers bicycle couriers on precarious contracts to transport samples of Covid-19. The couriers handle samples of the virus that they fear have not been packaged according to Public Health England guidelines, work in hospitals where they are at high-risk of contracting the disease, and are offered no protective equipment to prevent them getting infected. If they do fall ill, they are offered only Statutory Sick Pay, which falls well below the National Minimum Wage and makes it unaffordable for them to self-isolate.
Meanwhile, Unite has similar concerns about logistics firm UPS, which it says is not adequately protecting the health of drivers delivering medical supplies. The drivers vehicles are not being cleaned and equipment is not disinfected between uses, the union reported.
While these workers are carrying out essential jobs, thousands of others are being put at risk purely in the name of profit. GMB called out Asos, Amazon and Net-A-Porter for continuing their warehouse operations. Thousands of warehouse workers are spending hours a day in unsanitary and cramped conditions in order to ship non-essential items, it said. Similarly, Unite has called on shamed retail boss Mike Ashley of Sports Direct to shut down his infamous Shirebrook warehouse, at which workers are still expected to show up for work despite a public outcry earlier this week when Ashley said he would keep his outlets open despite the government lockdown.
Read the full report
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