Morrisons’ cut in sick pay for unvaccinated workers is cruel. It needs to rethink
Morrisons has announced that it will slash sick pay for unvaccinated workers, claiming it is removing the allowance in order to encourage unvaccinated workers to get the jab and boost vaccination rates.
Unvaccinated staff employed by the grocery giant will no longer be entitled to more than the legal minimum of £96.35 a week in statutory sick pay if they are instructed to self-isolate by test and trace but test negative for Covid. Morrisons joins a growing list of corporations – including Next, Ikea, Ocado and Wessex Water – in claiming that cutting sick pay will increase vaccine uptake.
Rather than buying into this misguided sense of unity, I’m left with a growing sense of unease about the implications of weaponising a public health goal to reduce sick payments for low-wage staff. Condemning staff to survive on less than £100 a week won’t teach anyone a lesson about the importance of the vaccine. Instead, it risks plunging workers into financial hardship, with some reluctant to declare they have been forced to self-isolate for fear of losing out on vital cash.
If we have learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that the lack of a robust safety net for workers has already exacerbated Covid transmission. Further cutting pay is no solution.It’s common knowledge that statutory sick pay is not enough for any worker to live on, and these companies know this. Even Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, said that he couldn’t live on £96.35 a week. As nothing has been done to make this amount liveable amid the worst health crisis in a generation, millions of the UK’s lowest-paid workers have been reliant on that amount if they have to self-isolate over the course of the pandemic, if they are entitled to it at all.
From a public
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