Swine flu: High risk to retail workers and no sick pay

[Bitter Ashes]

I'm about to start a bit of a push to get retail workers in my town unionised. Other than the obvious examples of where thier employers have let them down (low pay, high stress and lousy hours), there's a more immediate threat.

Most retail workers will come into contact with hundreds, sometimes thousands of members of the public. This puts them at high risk of contracting infectious desieses. Swine flu may seem trivial, however, at the very least, it will ensure that a worker who catches it will be unable to work for weeks, sometimes even forbidden by thier employer to work even if they wanted to. Some retail workers do have contracted hours and earn more than £90 a week and will recieve the laughable SSP (no SSP for the first two days off and then only £2 per contracted hour). The rest who either work part time, or do not have contracted hours, such as those in One Stop, who are contracted to no set hours and everything they do is classed as overtime. These workers will not even recieve the pathetic, £2 an hour, SSP.

So, I'm going to be visiting retail workers this week and find out whether they believe that employers should pay full pay for sickness on the account of them bieng high risk and encouraging them to unionise to fight for this right and the other normal ones above.

Anyone got any suggestions on how I could go about this and would anyone like to try do the same thing in other towns? :)

-Rachel

[Pogue]

I'm about to start a bit of a push to get retail workers in my town unionised. Other than the obvious examples of where thier employers have let them down (low pay, high stress and lousy hours), there's a more immediate threat.

Most retail workers will come into contact with hundreds, sometimes thousands of members of the public. This puts them at high risk of contracting infectious desieses. Swine flu may seem trivial, however, at the very least, it will ensure that a worker who catches it will be unable to work for weeks, sometimes even forbidden by thier employer to work even if they wanted to. Some retail workers do have contracted hours and earn more than £90 a week and will recieve the laughable SSP (no SSP for the first two days off and then only £2 per contracted hour). The rest who either work part time, or do not have contracted hours, such as those in One Stop, who are contracted to no set hours and everything they do is classed as overtime. These workers will not even recieve the pathetic, £2 an hour, SSP.

So, I'm going to be visiting retail workers this week and find out whether they believe that employers should pay full pay for sickness on the account of them bieng high risk and encouraging them to unionise to fight for this right and the other normal ones above.

Anyone got any suggestions on how I could go about this and would anyone like to try do the same thing in other towns? :)

-Rachel

Have you received advice from people within the union movement on how you got about this?

[Bitter Ashes]

Have you received advice from people within the union movement on how you got about this?
I've been talking to our branch secretary and co-ordinating with two other memebers from the branch since I made this actualy. We're going to hang fire on it for a little while actualy until we get a proper place on the web to send them. A hotmail address and the generic iww.org.uk site doesnt seem to cut it really.

Anyway, we've got a meeting on Thursday night, so it's on the agenda and somebody's taking it there for me as I wont be able to get there that night.

[Pogue]

I've been talking to our branch secretary and co-ordinating with two other memebers from the branch since I made this actualy. We're going to hang fire on it for a little while actualy until we get a proper place on the web to send them. A hotmail address and the generic iww.org.uk site doesnt seem to cut it really.

Anyway, we've got a meeting on Thursday night, so it's on the agenda and somebody's taking it there for me as I wont be able to get there that night.

Well if your talking to Wobs about it what you collectively decide on should be sound, just make sure you get the proper advice on the proper way to go about this.

[Bitter Ashes]

Well if your talking to Wobs about it what you collectively decide on should be sound, just make sure you get the proper advice on the proper way to go about this.
We will do. I'm not that much of a rogue :p
I'll let you know what was decieded on Thursday. :)

[Pogue]

cool, tell me in pm if you don't wanna talk about branch business openly obviously

[PRC-UTE]

Good luck, and be very careful... not being careful enough ruined some workplace organising I was involved in once.

[RebelDog]

Isn't capitalism wonderful. You fucking hate your job, your bosses and your synthetic surroundings and then you choose to become ill and jepordize your economic stability. Preumably this is a choice as it is the choice for british companies to pay or not to pay workers when they are sick. The sad thing is that any epidemic will only have the ones that do pay sick leave, wanting to wriggle out of those agreements if there is greater loss through sickness. Swine flu is just another example of human misery and pain that the working class will pay for somehow. Retail work is already possibly the worst work anyone can get in the UK and the turnover of staff is testament to this. Its horrible, its hard, its terrible hours, low pay, backbreaking and a really depressing, tyrannical environment to work in. We live in a society where we give bankers and capitalists who enflict misery and give no positive contribution to society massive remuneration, but we have no sick pay for retail workers and many other workers in other industries. The only way forward is for retail workers to unionise, preferably to the IWW, and strike out for sick pay. They have nothing to lose.

[pastradamus]

I detest the retail sector and its status quo. Fair play to ya and keep up the fight. Just watch your ass and remember whom you come into contact with on this campagin.

[Pogue]

yeh retail is a *****

[pastradamus]

yeh retail is a *****


The simple reason for this fact is this:

A Low-level worker who is authoritative and bossy is promoted to become a manager. This sends the said person on a power-trip as he/she is empowered into the position - thus giving him/her a big head and an air of superiority which is why the worst, most strict and biggest bullies in the Capitalist world are always your asshole manager in the supermarket.

[Coggeh]

Anyone got any suggestions on how I could go about this and would anyone like to try do the same thing in other towns? :)

-Rachel
Try organising with other activists nearby if at all possible 2 or 3 rather than one talking to a worker makes a surprising deal of difference.

Best of luck , hope it goes well.

[rednordman]

You think that is bad, check this out. Where i work one of my work mates has been off without pay for about 3 weeks WITH a recommendation from his GP. What the GP allegedly states in the letter is that he is able to do light duties (hes getting on a bit now and he has pulled a muscle in his calv).

Instead of pulling their fingers out, using common sense and giving him an easier job for about a couple of weeks, they have forced him to say off work without pay at all (he is a union member too - UDSAW)

What makes it worse however is that now they have created a load of 'light dutie' jobs around the warehouse...Refused to let him back until the note expires, AND given these jobs to healthy fit, young workers.

Sorry if that seemed off-topic, but it just shows exactly how employers take liberties regardless of circumstance. I fear that they will just end up sacking him due to his age (over 50).

In the case of swine flu, I probably will not loose my job, as it is known to be a big threat just at the moment. I know almost for certain that no matter how long off I have if I get it, I will not get paid any sick pay.

It isnt just the retail sector that has this problem, its universal. This country (UK) simply wants to forget us workers exist. All the best with your campaigning.

[Bitter Ashes]

edit: A bit too personal perhaps... (Rachel)

If anyone is willing to help please get in touch. We ARE able to print and distribute the leaflets, it's only the design that we would appreciate help with.

Another update is that we're also going to include something that we missed which is equaly important and that's for parents, or carers, who need to take time off to look after somebody with the virus, are also going to be mentioned on our leaflets, although we will still be focussing on retail workers at this moment as far as distribution is concerned.

[Bitter Ashes]

Further research has uncovered that there is an option available to workers who are not entitled to SSP. There is something called an Employment and Support Allowance that you can claim from the jobcentre. To make the claim you need to get a form called an SSP1 from the employer and phone 0800 055 6688 (0800 012 1888 for Northern Ireland) and make a claim.

ESA is paid by the goverment and it is even less than SSP; About £50 for under 25's and aroudn £65 for over 25's, compared to £75 SSP.

Obviously this is no substitute for full pay while ill, but I'm sure some workers who are concerned about the situation would ask the question about whether they'd been totaly abandoned for bieng in low-income employment.

[Zurdito]

The simple reason for this fact is this:

A Low-level worker who is authoritative and bossy is promoted to become a manager. This sends the said person on a power-trip as he/she is empowered into the position - thus giving him/her a big head and an air of superiority which is why the worst, most strict and biggest bullies in the Capitalist world are always your asshole manager in the supermarket.

Try supervisors in a call centre. :(

Good luck Ranma with this, the health issue is a key one and one the left often palys down with snobbish attitudes about "hysteria", when in fact, in a time of pandemic when health systems are collapsing, this is a huge issue. It is completely barbaric for pregnant women for example to be forced to spend their days unprotected in public spaces in the middle of a flu pandemic which is 10-20 times more deadly than a normal one and where there is shortage of beds and medicine.

[pastradamus]

Try supervisors in a call centre. :(

Good luck Ranma with this, the health issue is a key one and one the left often palys down with snobbish attitudes about "hysteria", when in fact, in a time of pandemic when health systems are collapsing, this is a huge issue. It is completely barbaric for pregnant women for example to be forced to spend their days unprotected in public spaces in the middle of a flu pandemic which is 10-20 times more deadly than a normal one and where there is shortage of beds and medicine.


Admittedly I must say I was one of those leftists who played down the hysteria associated with the swine flu. However, In my home Country of Ireland the pandemic has grown 50 fold in the space of a month. So it is something to worry about especially if you have young children.

[PRC-UTE]

Admittedly I must say I was one of those leftists who played down the hysteria associated with the swine flu. However, In my home Country of Ireland the pandemic has grown 50 fold in the space of a month. So it is something to worry about especially if you have young children.

at least in Mexico, they don't know for sure how many actually died of swine flu...some deaths attributed to it are questionable.

[Bitter Ashes]

at least in Mexico, they don't know for sure how many actually died of swine flu...some deaths attributed to it are questionable.
It's currently the worst in the Southern Hemisphere, due it bieng thier winter over there. Australia's suffering really badly from it proportionatly.

[Zurdito]

I'm in Argentina and the deaths are much more than are being reported the hospitals aren't counting HIV sufferers who aqren't being treated for lack of space. The health system has collapsed. And secondly in a normal season, 0,5% vulnerable patients die, this season, it is 5-10%.

I am not in favor of panic or hysteria, becuase htat is part of the problem - but the main problem in underfunding of health and making people go to work when they should be at home. Especially when there is still a chance that the virus could be mutating, so everything should be being done to stop its spread - but because the capitalist economy can't stop just to save a few lives, the virus keeps spreading and the situation is out of control.

[pastradamus]

I'm in Argentina and the deaths are much more than are being reported the hospitals aren't counting HIV sufferers who aqren't being treated for lack of space. The health system has collapsed. And secondly in a normal season, 0,5% vulnerable patients die, this season, it is 5-10%.

I am not in favor of panic or hysteria, becuase htat is part of the problem - but the main problem in underfunding of health and making people go to work when they should be at home. Especially when there is still a chance that the virus could be mutating, so everything should be being done to stop its spread - but because the capitalist economy can't stop just to save a few lives, the virus keeps spreading and the situation is out of control.

Absolutely,one must keep in mind how Threathened people with easily broken down immune systems are. Such as HIV/AIDS and Cysticfibrosis patients are at the moment.

[Bitter Ashes]

I was speaking to some people who work as carers the night before last. They've been specifically told by thier employers that they are to continue working with infected people, or risk dismissal, which I'm sure is against employment law as at the end of the day it's refusing to do work that carries a physical risk to health and some have young children at home too who if they caught it, could become lethal.

They've also been told that they will recieve basic SSP should they become ill. The workers have protested about it and been told to "shut up and get on with it".

These carers are doing a great service to people in need and already get sub-standard appreciation from thier employers for it in the form of wages. This just strikes me as a total kick in the teeth in return for thier kind natures.

In other news, we STILL need somebody to help print these leaflets. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU CAN HELP.