- Conference
- 2015 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 2 December 2014
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes 1.5 million people in the UK are employed by Employment Agencies, with around 350,000 people receiving less than the minimum wage.
Very few employment agencies paying below the minimum wage have faced any legal action or been fined, despite breaking employment laws.
In October 2014, the minimum wage for adults rose by 19p to £6.50 per hour. For 18 to 20 year old the new wage is £5.31 per hour and those below 18 years old it is £3.79 per hour.
For NHS Supply Chain, the majority of the new people in the warehouses, it is via an employment agency. The salary paid is based on the minimum wage or just above the minimum wage of £6.50 per hour. Many agency workers have to rely on bonus payments, such as productivity, attendance and in some cases night working to earn a figure still below the living wage £7.85 per hour (outside London) as set out by the Living Wage Foundation.
For many NHS Supply Chain agency workers for their October Pay the increase in the minimum wage was reflected in a drop of their bonus payments, therefore leading to no increases in their overall weekly/monthly salary compared to the months prior to October 2014.
Conference calls on Health Service Group Executive to instigate research highlighting:
1) where there may be employment agencies/contractors in the NHS paying the minimum wage or near to the minimum wage to employees working in the NHS. To establish if any employment agencies are readjusting bonus payments to pay for the October increase to £6.50 per hour;
2) where there is a strong NHS connection with the employment agency and the NHS provider, to campaign for those agency workers to join UNISON highlighting the Living Wage Campaign and/or Agenda for Change rates of pay;
3) where appropriate, to consider making contact with the NHS provider/ NHS contractor and/or the employment agency, in order to seek negotiations to achieve a reasonable increase in pay for those particular agency workers operating in the NHS, which hopefully would be more favourable to either the present Living Wage Campaign of £7.85 per hour or the Agenda for Change rates of pay;
4) to report back to the next conference on the research and developments.