The GMB union which represents security staff such as at contractors Mitie and G4S, and workers at Heathrow, wrote yesterday to Health Secretary Matt Hancock complaining that the GMB has ‘not been involved in any risk assessment process for the security staff working at these hotels’.
The union asked that workers at quarantine hotels have a thorough workplace testing regime in place and a guarantee of full pay for any period of self-isolation. The letter by Nadine Houghton, GMB national officer, pictured, made the point that lateral flow tests can provide false negatives ‘and we also know that many low paid workers feel they cannot afford to self-isolate’.
The union called for risk assessments to avoid the recovery from the covid pandemic being ‘hampered by new variants spreading amongst the community’. Quarantine hotels opened to travellers from ‘red list’ countries subject to bans yesterday, at Heathrow and other airports taking international flights.
As mentioned in the letter, and as featured in the February print edition of Professional Security magazine, a board of inquiry in December in Australia delivered a final report on the scandal of contract security staff guarding quarantine hotels in the state of Victoria actually caused outbreaks of coronavirus in Melbourne that the quarantine of visitors was supposed to prevent. The report showed failings from the very outset of the procurement of the contractors, to sub-contracting and a lack of training, procedures and management. Visit https://www.quarantineinquiry.vic.gov.au/.
At an English ‘managed quarantine hotel’ travellers are required to quarantine in a room for ten days. The hotel will provide meals. Those quarantined may leave their room to exercise ‘but only with special permission from security’; and it’s not guaranteed. Tests are taken in the room on days two and eight.
Anyone travelling into Scotland will need to present evidence that they have received a negative result, from a covid-19 test taken in the previous three days.
Comment
Naz Dossa, CEO of the lone worker product company Peoplesafe, said: “Hotel workers and security guards will be on the front line of the Government’s new travel policies but they must be protected to perform such an essential role. Alongside essential PPE to minimise risk of contracting and transmitting Covid-19, measures must be put in place to address the vulnerability of working alone.
“We know that across hospitality and retail, threatening and abusive incidents have risen significantly when staff are expected to enforce strict Covid-19 rules: our own figures showed an extraordinary 200 per cent increase in calls to our Alarm Receiving Centre in 2020. Government must ensure that quarantine hotels conduct thorough risk assessments and provide all workers with appropriate equipment to keep them safe and give them the ability to summon help where needed.”
