Treatments admin | 20 May 2011
Blood donors activities in the UK
Every day, the National Blood Service must collect 10,000 pints of blood to meet demand.
In an effort to increase supplies, the blood service sends mobile units to businesses across the country.
On-site donation is more convenient for both the donor and the team, but BT whose annual profits reached £2.94 billion last year, has docked pay from some workers who want to give blood in company time.
Unlike may other companies, BT has no policy for allowing it’s staff to give blood. A member of the sales team at one call centre in the South East was prevented from giving blood by her manager because of operational requirements. At the Bristol call centre, three members of staff had their wages docked after donating during BT time.
The issue was raised last month at the Communications Workers Union, which represents 90,000 BT employees. The union’s view is that BT should have a blanket policy and that employees need to know what the arrangements are in particular need to be able to give blood to the transfusion service without feeling inhibited, intimidated or losing wages.
Watchdog Healthcheck rang the top 100 companies in the FTSE index. All 80 who responded said they would give staff time off work to donate blood.
BT says it is very supportive of individual employees who volunteer to donate blood, but says that while it gives general guidelines, special leave must – by its very nature – be assessed by line management on a case by case basis and in the context of operational needs. BT says the situation in Bristol is a completely different issue. It says the three employees had arranged with their line manager that they would return to work at a certain time, however they all arrived back later than agreed, and it was for this reason – and no other – that 15 minutes’ pay was deducted.