UNISON members employed by ISS will join a lunchtime demonstration at Liverpool Royal Hospital today (Monday). 

The hospital workers are worried and angry about ISS’s plans to move them from weekly to fortnightly pay.  Staff are paid only the minimum wage and this pay delay will put tremendous strain on already-stretched household budgets. 

ISS’s proposals involve offering loans to staff to cover the shortfall in their wages, but these have to be repaid within four weeks.  In contrast, ISS propose that the money withheld from workers’ pay packets for hours they have already worked will not now be paid to them until they leave their job with the company.   

Maria Moss, UNISON North West Regional Organiser said:

“ISS are behaving thoughtlessly and recklessly in interrupting their workers’ pay.  Most ISS workers do not have savings to draw on to tide them over.  Witholding pay from staff threatens their ability to feed the kids and to pay the bills and rent.  ISS’s top managers don’t seem to have any understanding of what life is like for the workers they employ on the minimum wage. 

"ISS need to look again at these plans.  They should not proceed with the change in pay dates unless they can ensure that staff do not suffer any detriment or hardship as a result.”

The demonstration takes place from 11am to 1pm.

In a separate development, ISS staff will be taking part in a strike ballot over the failure of ISS to pay them the agreed national rates of pay for NHS workers.  A similar dispute was won recently at Liverpool Women’s Hospital after UNISON members employed by OCS took strike action.  OCS staff are now being paid the full NHS rates and the pay rise is worth some £2,000 a year for fulltime staff.