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UK firm won’t pay higher sick pay as Covid-19 ‘less severe than flu’

A senior executive at one of Britain’s biggest outsourcing companies has told workers he believes coronavirus is “less severe” than normal influenza in a message explaining why they will not receive any special sickness benefits.

During a negotiation with a trade union last week over sick pay for refuse collectors during the pandemic, a head of human resources at Amey plc, a services company with prison, defence and council contracts and a £2.3bn-a-year turnover, said that “when compared with many other diseases such as normal influenza, the impacts [of Covid-19] on the individual are currently actually less severe”.

The claim was described as “shocking” by the GMB trade union, which was negotiating for better sick pay on behalf of refuse collectors in the London borough of Ealing, where the company has the waste contract. Despite being classed as key workers by the Cabinet Office, the rubbish collectors are only being offered the contractual minimum, which in many cases is understood to be statutory sick pay of £94.25 a week.