Homecare companies are breaking the law on a grand scale by denying minimum wage to home care workers, UNISON said today. While care companies claim to pay minimum wage, many carers are only paid for time spent face-to-face with patients and not for time spent in transit. Judith Montgomery, a former Sevacare employee who took a case against her employers, was recently awarded £3,250 in withheld travel time payments. ‘My service users became like a family to me and I didn’t want to let them down,’ she commented today. ‘I worked on a zero-hours contract and would be paid only for time spent in my clients’ homes, never for the time spent travelling between them. So I could be paid for 30 hours a week but actually worked many more.’ While Montgomery and other’s have successfully challenged their employers in court, the firms tend to make individual payouts without correcting payments across their work forces.
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