Labour warns quarantine hitting jobs

Pauline is an interpreter with the NHS

“I’ve been employed by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) on a zero-hours contract for a number of years. There are about 300 of us in total, only 12 have full-time contracts. For the rest, there’s no guarantee of hours and the pay is low. Last year, all NHS employees got pay rises under Agenda for Change, but we were excluded.

“We’re supposedly key workers, but we feel like secondary workers. At the moment, we’re having meetings together to push for better conditions.”

NHSGGC said: “We recognise challenges faced as a result of Covid-19 and have sought to support the sessional interpreters throughout this time.”

Priti Patel

Quarantines that are causing massive job cuts in the travel industry should be reviewed and more extensive testing rolled out at airports to reduce self-isolation periods, Labour has said.

In a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel, it said the impact on jobs meant it was time to review the methods

John is employed as a casual worker by Levy Restaurant, a catering firm owned by Compass and subcontracted by the SEC, Glasgow

“I really enjoyed working at the SEC. It was a great job, I loved the people and getting to see gigs. When they put us on furlough, we were getting 80% of our average earnings, but through Unite Hospitality we got that increased to 100% for a few weeks. We’ve been told there will be a restructure, affecting 100 of us with potential redundancies.”

Levy UK said: “This is not a decision we have taken lightly, and are working hard to redeploy teams where possible.” being used to prevent the spread of Covid-19 from returning holidaymakers.

There has been confusion across the UK in recent days after Scotland and Wales reintroduced quarantine for those returning from Portugal but England and Northern Ireland did not.

Shadow home secretary

Nick Thomas-symonds called for a “robust testing regime in airports”.

The UK Government said: “Work is ongoing with clinicians, the devolved administrations and the travel industry to consider if and how testing could be used in the future to reduce the self-isolation period.”