In a joint open letter, dozens of disability charities and trade unions urge a major overhaul of statutory sick pay with its pay rate being raised to the living wage and scrap loopholes that penalise low-paid workers.
As well as DR UK, other signatories include Scope, Mind, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), and unions such as Unite, UNISON, and Usdaw.
The joint letter to the Secretary of State letter says: “The pandemic highlighted some of the shortcomings of our current sick pay legislation. Currently one third of workers are only paid £99.35 a week to take time off when ill.
Those workers are not paid for the first 3 days they are off sick. Furthermore, almost two million workers receive no sick pay because they earn below the earnings threshold of £123 per week with their employer.
As a result, the current system incentivises workers to go into work sick as they cannot afford to take the time off. This leads to public health risks as we saw during the pandemic.
It also leads to financial hardship, especially with the cost of living crisis. For instance, Mind found that two in three people with a mental health problem, who received Statutory Sick Pay, faced financial difficulties. Finally, this leads to people not being able to look after their health and wellbeing, and focus on getting better.”
The joint letter calls for four changes to Statutory Sick Pay legislation that would make a great impact to public health, personal wellbeing and whether some people can make ends meet during the cost of living crisis:
- Abolishing the earnings threshold for Statutory Sick Pay
- Making Statutory Sick Pay payable from the first day of sickness
- Increasing sick pay to be in line with a worker’s wages up to the real living wage
- Developing a flexible model for Statutory Sick Pay which allows for a phased return to work and income protection for workers
The joint letter concludes by saying: “Currently, the UK’s sick pay is among the lowest of any wealthy country. We would like to invite you to a meeting so that we can work with the Department of Work and Pensions to build a sick pay system our country can be proud of. We look forward to your response.”
A full copy of the letter is available from centreforprogressivechange.org.
For more information about the campaign see Safe Sick Pay - Time For A Safety Net also available from www.centreforprogressivechange.org.
See also our related news stories:
