UK Logistics Body Calls for Covid-19 Keyworker Clarity

The Timber Packaging & Pallet Confederation (TIMCON) is today asking the Government to clarify urgently that workers in wooden pallet and packaging companies are included in its list of key workers during the coronavirus outbreak.

Last night (19th March) TIMCON asked its members to sign a letter calling for the clarification. Some 24 businesses signed overnight, with more expected to sign during today.

The letter reads as follows:

As timber packaging and pallet businesses, we write to stress in the strongest terms the importance of including supply chain workers in the Government’s definition of key workers, during the COVID-19 crisis.

The European Commission (EC) stated this week that, while protecting the health of European citizens, we must also ensure that that they still have access to essential goods, especially food and medicines, demand for which is currently incredibly high.

To do this, we absolutely need workers to be free to carry out the physical work that supports supply chains. This includes sawmill workers, pallet repairers and manufacturers, and drivers of lorries and forklifts.

These people cannot work from home. We need them to be there in person to keep goods moving from origin to consumers.
If this doesn’t happen, the pharmaceutical, food and drink supply chains upon which people rely, will fail.

With schools across the UK and Ireland now shut, we need assurance these staff will be included on the Government’s key worker list as a matter of urgency.

The Government has listed workers involved in ‘food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods’ and those ‘working on transport systems through which supply chains pass’. However, it has not specified which job roles are included.