{"id":22545,"date":"2020-07-03T19:03:54","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T18:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=22545"},"modified":"2020-07-03T19:03:54","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T18:03:54","slug":"they-are-putting-people-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=22545","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0098They are putting people at risk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

When meat processing worker \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Alex\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tested positive for coronavirus, he was forced to stay off work for a number of weeks, along with the colleagues he shares a house with. <\/p>\n

The housemates were given no support by their company and were expected to survive on statutory sick pay.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00c2\u014194 a week. Our rent is around \u00c2\u014190 a week for a room,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Alex told the Mirror<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe company did nothing to help people who might be experiencing hardship. We just had to try our best to survive on \u00c2\u01414 a week.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFriends helped with food. All the company is bothered about is that we can produce, and their profit.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bPeople have been in hospital for three weeks with Covid, and the company has paid them nothing.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Alex, who came to the UK from Romania, is now back at work and \u00e2\u20ac\u0098standing shoulder to shoulder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 with other staff. The company has only recently begun handing out visors and promised perspex screens to separate workers have still not been installed. <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey are putting people at risk,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 explained Alex. <\/p>\n

Some staff are also facing the stark choice of working when they should be self-isolating or not putting food on the table. <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bLoss of taste and smell is a symptom, but people are still going into work with that \u00e2\u20ac\u201c because they are too afraid to lose the money, to slip into hardship,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe get \u00c2\u0141280 a week so it is impossible to save. No one can afford to lose their job.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAbout three-quarters of the people here are foreigners so they are scared to lose their jobs.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Similar issues were reported at another meat processing factory with a Covid-19 outbreak.<\/p>\n

A recent Unite survey of staff at the factory found that 64.5 per cent of staff had gone into work while sick, with 69 per cent of those doing so because they couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to lose pay.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSome people are coming in sick at work because they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to lose money,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 one worker told the union. <\/p>\n

Another said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bFurloughed staff receive 80 per cent of their salary, yet if we go to work as \u00e2\u20ac\u0098key workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and become sick we only get \u00c2\u014194 a week. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sound like being a key worker it sounds like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re The Expendables.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Workers also reported that health and safety concerns were not being taken seriously by the factory\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s management. <\/p>\n

One said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have soaps or hand sanitiser for more than two months and they still forced us to keep working.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing being done to keep social distance on the shop floor,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 another reported. <\/p>\n

Unite national officer for food, drink and agriculture Bev Clarkson said: \u00e2\u20ac\u015bExploitation driven by corporate greed is a major factor in the public health emergencies amongst meat processing plants here and in other countries.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere is a real danger, however, that migrant workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c many of whom simply cannot afford to be ill because their employers refuse adequate sick pay \u00e2\u20ac\u201c will prove to be an easy target for those looking to shift the blame elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bEmployers must not be allowed to escape responsibility for the dire working conditions, low pay and insecure employment that blight the meat processing industry, and which have now come back to bite the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s efforts to defeat the coronavirus.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

By Ryan Fletcher\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When meat processing worker \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Alex\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tested positive for coronavirus, he was forced to stay off work for a number of weeks, along with the colleagues he shares a house with.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The housemates were given no support by their company and were expected to survive on statutory sick pay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1308,1214],"tags":[1295,489,983,574],"wps_subtitle":"Meat processing workers treated like \u00e2\u20ac\u0098the Expendables\u00e2\u20ac\u2122","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22545"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22545"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22550,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22545\/revisions\/22550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}