Email DWP Secretary, Liz Kendall and Employment Minister, Alison McGovern: Increase the rate of statutory sick pay!

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As the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Minister for Employment, I'm writing to you to express my concern over the current rate of statutory sick pay (SSP) in this country.

Although I welcome Labour's recent commitments to remove the lower earning limit and pay sick pay from day one, workers like myself are still struggling to survive on £116.75 a week when we fall sick.

I am one of almost 30,000 Organise members who have joined the campaign for a safe sick pay and I urge you both in your new capacities to commit to increase SSP for all. A survey conducted by Organise last year found that over 85% of workers have gone to work while sick. This means that we are infecting other workers which is bad for employees and employers in the long term.

We need a sick pay system that supports workers when they need it the most, and that allows workers to actually take sick leave when we're ill, instead of spreading illnesses around workplaces and delaying our own recoveries.

Increasing sick pay is a preventative approach to employee absenteeism, which is currently the highest it has been in over a decade.

Here are some of the reasons why the general public support an increase in sick pay:

“I have been frightened to be off sick for years, only taking time off when I had Covid and had severely bad flu/sciatica. I lost 3 days’ wages and couldn't get a doctor's appt as the surgery was short of GPs! I didn't eat meals for several days as I had no food or money. It is as simple as that I'm afraid, life's tough for so many out there nowadays because of a broken system.”

“During Covid, statutory sick pay contributed to the spread. If you caught Covid you’d have to choose between continuing to work and knowingly infecting vulnerable customers or being socially responsible and taking a huge unnecessary financial hit. SSP punished us for doing what was right for the public. I never want to be in that position again. SSP must be given from the 1st day and be enough to be financially viable for the employee.”

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

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