UK healthcare staff call in sick to avoid using car as cost of fuel soars, union says
Low-paid health and care workers are calling in sick because they cannot afford to fill their cars with petrol to travel to work, the head of the UK’s largest trade union has warned.
Boris Johnson said on Thursday that the UK economy was “steering into the wind” but cautioned against a “wage-price spiral”, as the cost of a tank of fuel hit a record £100.
Christina McAnea, general secretary of the public services union Unison, said some of her members were likely to strike in the coming months, faced by real-terms pay cuts as the cost of living crisis bites.
“[Petrol price rises are] having a big impact on people with jobs that mean they have to travel. So community health workers, health visitors, care workers, social workers … are saying they just cannot afford to do their jobs any more,” she said.
“We’re actually hearing of people who would rather phone in sick because they don’t have the money to fill up their cars and do their jobs. And more and more people are leaving public services, even in local government. There’s huge vacancies across local government.”
She said of the prospect of strike action: “We don’t want to bring low-paid workers out on strike. But if there’s no alternative, what else can people do?
“If we’ve got a government where they are getting 2-3% pay increases and we’ve got inflation running at 10% or even more by the end of the year and they already pay a disproportionate amount of their income on fuel, housing, energy and food costs, if you are low paid worker … that has a huge impact on people.”
McAnea, who was a housing officer in Glasgow before becoming a full-time union official, said Unison is already balloting local government staff in Scotland over industrial action, which could lead to schools
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