Low-paid UK cleaners doing “backbreaking” jobs are dragging themselves to work while ill because many are unable to claim sick pay, research has found.
A year-long investigation into conditions in the sector found that more than a third of the 500 cleaners consulted had worked while unwell.
The project was carried out by the Centre for Progressive Change (CPC), a campaign group, and the thinktank Autonomy.
The vast majority of cleaners who took part in the research, which included an online survey as well as workshops and one-to-one interviews, said they were unable to take sick leave.
“They told us that if we got ill, they weren’t going to pay us, or they were going to sack us,” one participant said of their employer.
Another cleaner said: “My friend fell at work. She was at home for one month. They didn’t pay her.” A third participant told researchers they had not taken sick leave “because they throw you out of work. They make the most of the government’s flexibility to be bad, firing you or reducing your hours.”
Legally, workers who earn more than £123 a week are entitled to statutory sick pay (SSP) after three days off sick – though many employers across the economy have their own, more generous schemes. SSP is worth £109.40 a week.
Cleaners told the researchers they did not earn enough to qualify for SSP, or could not afford to manage without three days’ pay before it kicked in, or in some cases that their employer had refused to pay it.
The three-day waiting period was temporarily scrapped during the coronavirus pandemic amid fears that people would continue working while sick and transmit the disease.
Will Stronge, the director of research at Autonomy, said: “The UK has one of the least generous sick pay systems in the industrialised world. Millions of workers across the country are missing out on sick pay and this is making the workplace unsafe for everyone.”
Elias Alvarenga, a cleaner in Canary Wharf in London and a Unite representative, said he commonly spoke to colleagues who did not receive sick pay. “The whole city of London has a sick pay problem,” he said. “We have a lot of members working for different companies in this situation.”
A longstanding employee of an outsourcing firm, he said he had personally built up an entitlement to 20 days of paid sick leave – but he dealt with many others who were not so lucky.
Alvarenga said: “We ask them to see their contract. If there’s nothing there for sick pay, we can’t do nothing. If they don’t want to treat their cleaners properly, they won’t.”
The report, called “Cleaning up the sector: a better future of work for cleaners”, urges employers to ensure all their staff receive sick pay from day one of falling ill.
The CPC is coordinating the Safe Sick Pay campaign, a coalition of charities, experts and politicians calling for reform of the system.
Supporters include the Conservative MPs Priti Patel and Robert Buckland as well as the charity Mind, and the Association of Directors of Public Health.
Amanda Walters, the director of Safe Sick Pay, said: “The cleaning industry is in need of a clean-up. When cleaners go back to work sick, they end up making more people ill. This hurts employers and our wider economy.”
The Safe Sick Pay campaign is calling for the three-day waiting period before SSP is paid to be eliminated, the £123-a-week lower income threshold to be scrapped, and payments to be made more generous.
Labour promised to meet the first two of these demands – scrapping the waiting period and the income threshold – in its “new deal for workers”, details of which were recently thrashed out with trades unions. But the party has not yet said whether it will increase the level of SSP above the current £109.40 a week.
A government spokesperson said: “Statutory sick pay is part of a wider financial safety net, including universal credit and new-style employment and support allowance, for those who need extra financial help.
“We are consulting on plans to increase occupational health take-up by employers and our next generation of welfare reforms includes an extra £2bn to support those with health conditions and disabilities return to and remain in work wherever possible.”
