Pandemic revealed scope for change
[ch 1: page 5]When the disease first arrived in the UK, the government was forced to adapt its existing approach both to sickness absence and to prevention, with measures designed to protect those most vulnerable.
That included stopping the spread by keeping infected or potentially infected people away from their normal workplace. It showed how existing policies could be extended to provide more support, when the pressure to do so was strong enough.
The TUC’s Sick Pay for All campaign called on the government to go much further, scrapping the minimum earnings threshold for Statutory Sick Pay (see page 13); increasing the rate to the equivalent of the Real Living Wage (at least £330 per week); providing additional funds to ensure employers could afford sick pay; and ensuring no one had to wait three days to qualify. However, most of the changes made were more limited than that, and have been or are being withdrawn.