Articles

Pay Care Workers for their Travel Time UNISON Urges

05/11/2014

UNISON has obtained government data indicating that around 93 per cent of councils throughout England and Wales are not ensuring care workers are compensated for their travel time.

UNISON, one of UK’s biggest trade unions, released on its website last October 29, 2014 figures acquired from its recent freedom of information (FOI) request.

Data from the FOI request by UNISON revealed only around 7 per cent of councils make travel time compensation as part of their contractual stipulations with providers.

UNISON said up to 30 per cent of a care worker’s work time is spent travelling from one patient’s location to another. Omission of travel time coverage in council contracts means that carers are paid below the minimum wage of £6.50/hour, the trade union points.

National Audit Office revealed that 220,000 care workers throughout UK are not receiving minimum wage. Almost half of home care providers are also not paying their workers’ time spent for travelling, according to a Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) April 2014 report.

Councils across UK argue they are not obliged to stipulate that providers should pay for time spent for travelling by care workers as their contracts already mention requirement to pay minimum wage.

UNISON is not in agreement, however, and has urged councils to sign its Ethical Care Charter to ensure care workers’ right to minimum wage is protected. As of this writing, 8 councils have signed the Charter.

Dave Prentis, UNISON’s General Secretary, said: "The only way to stamp out these illegal practices is for the Government to tighten its guidelines to ensure there is a contractual condition between councils and homecare providers that workers must be paid at least the minimum wage. And councils must be required to properly monitor compliance."