By Charlotte Webster-
Cleaners and porters working at Mayday Hospital are being balloted by the union for strike action in their battle with their employers, outsourcing giant G4S, over the refusal to pay sick pay when staff get covid or have to self-isolate to reduce the spread of the deadly virus.
GMB union members claim they are being silenced and intimidated by their employer, who m they say are not responding to concerns raised about covid sick pay.
A consultative industrial action ballot is underway and will finish on February 21.
It follows another scheduled protest by Dozens of cleaners and porters who protested outside the hospital last week over the lack of full sick pay during covid-related absences.
The workers were joined outside the hospital by some local Labour politicians, including Val Shawcross, the candidate for Croydon Mayor.
G4S say they are prepared to enter talks with the porters at Mayday hospital, but have asked them to stop the protest plans for that to occur. Such conditions have been interpreted to amount to bullying, something the union says it would not bow to. The union claim to have verified a number of cases in which employees who took time off due to covid-19 were not afforded any sick pay, despite government guidelines at the time for those who test positive for the virus to self isolate for 7 days.
A spokesman for G4S told The Eye Of Media.Com that all efforts were being made to ensure sick pay for employees genuinely off work from Covid, but representatives of the union has branded the response ‘pure rhetoric without substance’.
Self isolation mandates have been officially reduced from 10 to 5 days after a positive test for covid, but that assumes a subsequent negative test before hospital employees can be expected to mix with their colleagues in any setting.
“Our members have had enough of being silenced by the bullying tactics of G4S management,” Helen O’Connor, the GMB Organiser, told this publication in a statement
Had enough: GMB official Helen O’Connor
“They are determined to fight hard to get the covid sick pay they deserve and ensure hospital patients are kept safe from cross-infection.
“These workers have already won huge support from the public and other staff groups in the NHS Trust – doctors are offering their support too.
“Our members are growing in confidence and we have told the Trust that this problem isn’t going away until the dispute is properly resolved.
“We urge the trust and G4S to listen to these legitimate concerns – this situation simply cannot continue.”