GMB LONDON WELCOME SECURING £10.75 PER HOUR LIVING WAGE FOR OUTSOURCED FRONT LINE (KEY WORKERS) AT BARKING, HAVERING AND REDBRIDGE NHS TRUST

The deserved pay rise works out at £4,953 per year for a full time worker earning the national minimum wage says GMB London

GMB London, the union for (cleaners, porters and) outsourced staff in the NHS, welcome securing the London living wage of £10.75 per hour. There are 600 outsourced front line staff in King George’s and Queens Hospitals in East London.

From April 2020 the hourly pay for the lowest paid outsourced workers will rise from £8.21 to £10.75. For these staff this amounts to a pay rise of nearly £5,000 per year.

These staff are employed by Sodexo and Interserve. They work as porters, cleaners and in catering at the hospitals run by the Trust. They are among the front-line staff in the current Covid19 public health emergency.

Lola McEvoy, GMB Regional officer for health, said ” GMB London welcome this decision after a long running campaign by the union to secure the end of the two tier workforce in the NHS.

GMB welcome that the decision was rushed through by Trust in recognition of the scale of the Covid19 challenge faced by direct and outsourced staff.

The London Living Wage (£10.75) is the minimum hourly rate workers in London can earn to meet the cost of living. The deserved pay rise works out at £4,953/year for a full time worker earning the national minimum wage.

This commitment is recognition of the vital role our members at King Georges and Queens Hospitals do all year round to keep our NHS running.

During the current Covid19 crisis it provides some good news for the cleaners, porters and all the other outsourced staff who are so often forgotten. Covid19 has put the daily reality facing our members in the spotlight, without them the NHS would not be able to function.

We will continue to campaign for all outsourced workers across the NHS to get decent sick pay, a real Living Wage and to be brought back in house.

This is as part of the long standing demand from GMB for parity for outsourced cleaners, caterers and porters at the Trust. All those who provide vital NHS services should be brought back in-house so they are paid the same and receive the same terms and conditions as the directly employed staff.”