Many of the outsourced workers at the Royal College of Music currently have far inferior terms and conditions to directly employed members of staff at the College. Of particular concern is these workers’ entitlement to sick pay, holidays, and pensions.
Many of these workers are only entitled to the statutory minimum for holidays. This means that they have 20 paid holidays (plus 8 bank holidays). Given the fact that many of these workers are from foreign countries and use holidays to return home, restricting their holiday entitlement makes visiting friends and family particularly difficult. Additionally, Ocean (the company you subcontract to do the cleaning) restricts how many of these holidays can be taken at once, making it even more difficult to return home.

The pension schemes available to outsourced workers are also inferior, entitling them to only minimal employer contributions.

Finally, and of most concern is the issue of sick pay. Currently many of the outsourced workers only have statutory sick pay. This means that for the first three days of illness-related absence they will not be paid anything at all. Starting on the fourth consecutive day they will only be entitled to £88.45 per week, hardly enough to pay rent or buy groceries.
We request that the Royal College of Music take action to improve outsourced workers’ levels of sick pay, holiday, and pension entitlements. More specifically, we request that outsourced workers be entitled to up to 6 months’ occupational sick pay, up to 35 days holiday (including bank holidays) and access to a pension scheme with significant employer contributions.