Seventeen home care workers employed across the London Borough of Haringey are taking care company Sevacare and the council to court in a dispute over the non-payment of the minimum wage in the sector’s biggest ever legal claim
Until July Sevacare was a major provider of adult social care in Haringey, but its contracts have now been taken over by other companies. The claim relates to payment made to workers over a six-year period up to 2016.
The case is backed by the union Unison, which says its calculations suggest some of the group were paid at a rate of £3.27 per hour under arrangements with Sevacare, when the national living wage is £7.20 per hour.
The workers, all but one of whom are women, were employed on zero-hours contracts to care for elderly and disabled residents across the borough. They visit people in their own homes and in some cases provide 24-hour live-in care.
Unison says its calculations show that on a typical day the women might be working away from home for as many as 14 hours, but could receive payment for only half of them. This can leave them earning as little as £3.85 an hour.
Care workers who provide live-in care regularly spend an entire week – 168 consecutive hours – living in someone else’s home so they give around-the-clock care. Unison claims they are paid as little as £3.27 an hour, and alleges that this hourly rate is printed on their payslips.
The union and workers say they should be paid for time spent travelling to people’s homes and also for time spent ‘on call’ for people’s needs.
Sevacare has stated that it disputes the idea that the women had been working 24 hours a day.
In a statement the company says the ‘live-in’ care workers' hours were covered by a ‘daily average agreement’ which saw them paid for 10 hours. As a result, it says they received £550 for a seven-day week, which is the equivalent of £7.85 an hour.
The company said: ‘Sevacare submits that it pays, and had paid to these staff, an average hourly rate that is at least the national minimum wage over any pay reference period.’
A spokesman for Haringey said the council contractually requires providers to obey minimum wage law, including remuneration for travel time.
‘Our rates allow for providers to pay both the national minimum wage and the national living wage, and we will be writing to them all to remind them of their Care Act obligations, stating clearly that no breaches will be tolerated,’ he said.
