"Frontline staff face lottery when it comes to essential criminal-check costs"

 

Just imagine that you go for a job as a carer (nearly always low paid) then find out you have to pay for your criminal record check (DBS), not your employer! 42% of employers in a recent UNISON survey recharge their employees for these statutory checks in order to work and care. 2.4 million workers. Incredible. Some of these care workers have to pay for multiple checks since they have to work for different employers to get a full time wage.

Hat tip to UNISON care worker Jordan Creed (and branch secretary of the London Voluntary Organisations Branch) for exposing this national scandal. 

"Staff working with vulnerable people face a lottery when it comes to who pays for an essential check needed to do their jobs, says UNISON.

Employers have a legal duty to carry out criminal record checks on frontline public sector workers. A recent survey from the union found that more than four in ten (42%) are passing on the cost of that to their employees.

UNISON believes this means almost two and a half million frontline public sector workers are paying for their own criminal record checks.

Women (74%) and the lowest paid (85%) make up the majority of people working in jobs that require the checks, the research found.

However, UNISON can find no pattern to explain why some employers cover the cost and others – often facing the same recruitment and budgetary pressures – force staff to foot the bill.

According to the survey, over two-thirds (69%) of staff who do not currently pay for the disclosure and barring service check would be put off applying for a job where they would have to meet them cost themselves.

Employees complain about being forced to pay for a new check if they get promoted or move within the same organisation.

UNISON said the law should be changed so employers cannot pass the cost onto staff. The fee was waived during the pandemic for health and social care applicants and the union said government covering the cost for all public sector workers made sense during the current recruitment crisis.

UNISON assistant deputy general secretary Jon Richards said: “People already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis should not be forced to pay to work. Most staff who need these checks earn below the national average and money docked from their pay is cash they can ill afford to lose.

“Criminal record checks are vital and bosses have a legal duty to carry them out. The law should be changed to stop rogue employers from docking money for work essentials such as these checks from their staff.

“Such a seemingly small change would make a huge difference to the tens of thousands of staff who currently have to pay for their own checks. People are being put off applying for jobs and even going for promotion because of the cost, which is no good for them or their employers.”

A cross-party group of MPs will discuss the report’s findings at a parliamentary roundtable event on Tuesday 5 December. MPs, including chair of the home affairs select committee Dame Diana Johnson, will hear directly from frontline public sector workers at the event in Room U, Portcullis House from 12:30pm-1:30pm".

West Ham Labour canvass & remembering V2 Nazi Rocket attack (Solidarity with Ukraine)

 

Yesterday I helped organise a Labour campaign session in the ward that I represent as a Councillor in Newham, West Ham with my colleague Cllr John Whitworth. It was great that we had a number of Party  members joining us including Plastow Councillor, John Morris, (so there was 3 John's on the team) local party members and also Jordan, a UNISON Labour Link activist from Camden.

During the canvass we stopped off to honour (see picture) the roundabout in what is now called Marriott Road, which I believe is the impact site of a German Nazi V2 Rocket attack on 1 Feb 1945. 

See an account of the carnage at this site below:-

"In the early hours of 1st February 1945 at 3:03 am, Hitler’s last weapon of terror, a V-2 Rocket, left a trail of death and destruction on the sleeping street. An unmanned, guided, ballistic missile that had a maximum speed of 3440 mph, flying at an altitude of 52-60 miles, and carrying a warhead of 2150lbs of high explosives dropped without warning onto the sleeping Barnby Street, at up to four times the speed of sound. The ultra-high-speed descent meant that no sound was heard by those about to be hit. The effects of the resulting explosion were catastrophic, the explosion and subsequent sonic boom were heard all over London.

On that cold winters night, in just a few short seconds 29 people lost their lives and 15 others were seriously injured. Houses were totally destroyed and the surrounding streets were severely bomb blasted". 

A local resident told us that when she moved into her home right next to the roundabout she was told by the housing officer that this was the site of a mass grave of the dead. I told her that I didn't think that this was strictly accurate. 

Marriott Road is also named after a local firefighter who was killed during the blitz. We must do something to remember him and the dead 29 civilians by the next anniversary on 1 Feb 2023. 

After the canvass we went for coffee (and brunch for some) in the Sawmill cafe in West Ham Lane, which is run by a local Ukrainian family. While enjoying my brunch, I will admit that I felt what happened to Eastenders in 1945 must be similar to the experience of so many Ukrainians in 2022. 

Both victims of vile Nazi aggression. That picture of devastation and death in the collage is the same as so many modern day pictures in Ukraine. 

Solidarity to Ukraine in their fight against Putin fascism!