The Great Jubilee Job Robbery and Pay-Dent

by Hannah Blythyn

The media and Twitter sphere has quite rightly been aghast at the shameful treatment of the stewards ‘working’ on the Jubilee pageant last weekend and Zoe Williams’ article asserting that it showed modern Britain at its worst was spot on.

Alas, they weren’t the only workers getting a raw deal as much of the country was munching on their soggy Jubilee sandwiches. Spare a though for the thousands of NHS workers who, a week ago today were doing what they do day in day to deliver the vital services our communities depend upon – but without the recognition that they were working an extra bank holiday.

Despite the UK government decreeing that last Tuesday was also a bank holiday more than one hundred NHS employers in the UK treated Tuesday’s Diamond Jubilee as a normal working day, denying hard-working staff the normal bank holiday pay and time off in lieu arrangements.

Unite reps managed to pull together a dossier of shame of a total of 113 employers which weren’t paying the UK wide nationally agreed Agenda for Change rates nor recognising the time off in lieu arrangements. Union reps highlighted how NHS workers were being hit by increased childcare costs and needed the extra pay to cover these costs.

So whilst many others were making the most of the extra day off public sector workers were bearing the brunt once again.

For a full list of the employers ‘named and shamed’ by Unite click here

Tags: bank holiday, Jubilee, national agreements, NHS, trade unions, Unite, workers