Reece Wilson, Aldershot and North Hampshire Socialist Party
Expressing concern that Labour’s commitment to strengthen sick pay is not being followed through, 24 trade union leaders have signed up to the Safe Sick Pay campaign and written to Keir Starmer. Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) will be £118.75 per week from April, with the Employment Rights Bill making sick pay available from day one of illness, rather than day four as it stands currently, if this pledge makes it through two years of parliamentary wranglings. It will also remove the lower earnings limit, replacing it with a percentage of earnings rather than the flat SSP rate.
The Safe Sick Pay campaign reports a third of workers rely solely on SSP if sick, with 1.3 million workers “slipping through the cracks” and getting no sick pay whatsoever due to working multiple jobs. The Trades Union Congress said that “SSP is around 20% of average earnings and amongst the lowest rate in Europe.” The campaign demands increasing the basic rate of SSP, removing the lower earnings limit to make it available to all workers, and removing the waiting period so that it is paid from day one. As it stands, the Employment Rights Bill meets these demands.
The trade union movement should demand more! Workers should be on full pay from day one of an illness. While big business is raising all manner of hue and cry over the changes Labour is bringing through, the FTSE 100 has increased by 7.6% this year. There is the wealth in society to provide a decent life for all and create a society where workers can rest and recover when sick, rather than dragging themselves into work and making others ill in order to pay their rent and bills.
Policies like this can be brought through parliament now to bring about an immediate improvement in workers’ lives. Instead, like the removal of some anti-union laws, Labour is dragging its feet as reforms get watered down amidst pressure from big business.
Any reforms that we claw from the capitalist class, they will try to claw back to protect and increase their profits. We need strong, fighting unions in our workplaces to win and maintain these gains. And if we want a decent life for workers – those who make society run – then the working class needs to take the commanding heights of the economy into its own hands. Then we could democratically plan what we need, and stop the leeching of society by profit-making bosses.
