Angela Rayner vows to ‘make work pay’ as 7million set for sick pay increase

More than seven million workers would benefit from Labour’s day-one sick pay boost – avoiding a “financial cliff-edge” for getting ill.

It comes as Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner set out fresh details of the party’s plan to ‘make work pay’.

Labour research has found working people are on average £65 worse off a week compared to 14 years ago.

“The Tories have failed working people,” Ms Rayner said. “After fourteen years of economic chaos, it’s working people who have been left out of pocket. Families are counting the cost of a lost decade under the Conservatives, with an economy blighted by low pay and riven by insecurity.”

She added: “Our New Deal for Working People will be the biggest upgrade to rights at work in a generation, boosting wages, tackling insecure work and ending the race to the bottom on rights at work by raising the floor. Labour will make work pay.”

More than 100 Labour activists gathered in Ashton-under-Lyne with Ms Rayner and USDAW General Secretary Paddy Lillis early on Saturday morning to launch Labour’s plan.

The flash mob spelled out the letters ‘Make Work Pay’ in footage captured by a drone camera taken from the air. Stagnant wage growth under the Tories has left working people at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis – with many finding it hard to make ends meet by the end of the week – or not having enough to have a day out with their familly.

Meanwhile analysis from the Trades Union Council (TUC) found 7.4 million employees would be able to claim sick pay from their first day of illness under Labour’s New Deal for Working People. Under current rules, as many as one in four employees has to wait three days before receiving statutory sick pay (SSP).

More than one million workers currently get no SSP at because they don’t meet the lower earnings limit of £123 a week. And some 7 in 10 (69%) of those employees are women.

Both of these problems would be resolved under Labour’s plan.

Ms Rayner said: “Too many workers are forced to work through illness. The wait for sick pay forces low-paid workers forced to choose between financial hardship and getting better, putting everyone’s health at risk as viruses spread. Labour will strengthen statutory sick pay by removing the waiting time and the lower earnings limit. This will guarantee millions of working people security when they get sick, from day one of illness.”

“Nobody should be plunged into hardship when they become sick,” the TUC’s General Secretary Paul Nowak

“But millions of workers face a financial cliff edge if they get ill. Making people wait three days before they get any support is just plain wrong – especially in the current cost of living crisis. That’s why it is essential that SSP is available from day one and available to all. Being forced to work through illness is bad for workers and bad for public health.

“Labour’s New Deal for Working People would fix this problem. With sick pay rights from the first day of sickness, you will know that your family is protected. And you can take the time you need to recover.”