I believe I lost my job as a medical courier carrying Covid-19 samples for trying to protect myself – now is the time to put people above profit

My company, TDL, denies making myself and my colleagues redundant over such issues, or putting anyone at risk – but I have lost my means to provide for my family

A courier for The Doctors Laboratory after picking up a coronavirus test sample in London (AP)

Our union won holiday pay, pensions and the first pay rise at the Doctors Laboratory (TDL) for twenty years. In my view, it’s no wonder they wanted to get rid of us. Coronavirus gave them not only the perfect opportunity but their biggest reason yet. We blew the whistle on practices we believed were putting lives at risk and of course, they couldn’t have that.

A week ago the TDL10, as we’re known, were all made redundant. On Wednesday we spent the day with our colleagues on the virtual picket line of the first strike by key workers since the Covid-19 pandemic began. I spoke alongside Owen Jones, John McDonnell and Sarah Osamor MP while outside the HQ of its parent company, Sonic Healthcare, in Australia, supporters held a physical picket line in solidarity. TDL has made use of the continued privatisation of the NHS and is currently bidding on NHS contracts worth £150 million.

Our union, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), has also launched a trade union detriment and whistleblower victimisation claim against TDL. Members of the public have sent thousands of emails on our behalf and that support has been not only humbling and heartening, but telling. It shows people know what’s at stake right now.

There will be those who say that now is not the time to strike but now is precisely the time. As a society, our ability to control the spread of Covid-19 is determined by our ability to protect those on the frontlines. With workers’ rights, health and safety now of paramount importance to public health, the role of trade unions is more vital now than ever before.

I’ve spent over five years as a medical courier at TDL. I’m the chair of the couriers branch of the IWGB. I’m also married and have two young kids at home so when the lockdown started, I was stuck between a rock and hard place. I was a key worker and I had to go to work to keep a roof over their heads but it meant taking risks, more risks than it should have.

Throughout the pandemic we’d been transporting the very thing most people had been ordered to hide from in their homes: samples of Covid-19. We were doing it without Personal Protective Equipment (PPE,) without testing, at first even without any sick pay. As well as going home to our families, we travelled between hospitals full of high-risk patients.

Gig economy workers are used to feeling disposable but we weren’t used to being afraid. We’re proud of the work we did but ashamed of the company we worked for, that makes millions every year but still couldn’t find the money to protect our health, safety and jobs.

Forced to protect ourselves, we decided to write to the CEO. We had to ask even for the basics, like a risk assessment, PPE and full pay during self-isolation, without which it becomes a privilege for those who can afford it and that puts everyone in danger. TDL rejected every single one of our demands. David Byrne went so far as to say there was no medical benefit to regular testing; fine words from the CEO of a company that partnered with Superdrug on Covid-19 home testing kits and signed a £4 million deal with the Premier League. To us the message was clear: It wasn’t the tests they saw no value in - it was us.

We had to speak out because of what we saw as a threat to public health, and people listened. I was interviewed in the papers, I even popped up on Panorama. Even at a time of national crisis, people were shocked when they saw the conditions we were working under.

When my friend Tony came down with Covid-19 symptoms, he spent half the annual holiday pay he’d helped us win so he could self-isolate to protect others. It was Friday 1st May, International Workers Day, when Tony, I and eight other couriers got the call to say we would be made redundant.

Only the night before, the nation clapped for us. Businesses were starting to re-open and we thought we could see light at the end of the tunnel. Now we were facing unemployment.

The redundancy process felt like a box-ticking exercise so I wasn’t surprised when I lost my job last week. When TDL said the pandemic presented an opportunity to restructure, I have no doubt that what it meant was that it was an opportunity to drive down labour costs and structure workers’ rights out of the equation.

We believe they talk about union organisers as ‘troublemakers’ and that they hired a Head of Logistics to get rid of us. They wanted to cut out the heart of the union at TDL and that’s what they’ve tried to do. We expected when the pandemic started that if they thought they could avoid accountability and public scrutiny, companies like TDL would look to capitalise on the chaos, whatever the human cost.

Making money off the back of a crisis when people are more vulnerable to exploitation, that’s just basic disaster capitalism. I’ve lost my means to provide for my family. Nine friends and colleagues have lost their jobs too.

What matters is whether we can come together now and turn the tide. We believe TDL wanted to make an example of us. If we can make an example of them instead, if we can show that this is a time to put people before profit, then perhaps we can. I for one am determined to keep fighting, to protect people’s lives and livelihoods through this pandemic. If TDL thinks the storm is passed, they have another thing coming.

TDL has denied putting employees at risk. It says no one has been chosen for redundancy because of their whistleblowing or trade union activities.