Employment rights are only as strong as your ability to enforce them
The new government shouldn’t delay in taking action on insecure work
Over the last year, Citizens Advice helped 200,000 people with 340,000 issues relating to employment. We’ve done extensive research on the topic, from looking at the disability employment gap to income security and sharp practice at work.
The rise of the gig economy presents plenty of benefits such as flexibility. Workers and employees will both benefit when there’s a good balance between flexibility and security. That’s why we’re campaigning to improve income security.
This morning’s labour market stats show that unemployment is still falling, and the employment rate is once again at the highest since records began. More than a quarter of the growth in employment has been self-employed workers — rising by more than 100,000 since this time last year. Worryingly, this is all in the context of a fall in real term wages for employees.
The labour market is clearly continuing to change and for many this means increased insecurity. But there’s a real opportunity for the next government to address insecure work in a holistic way. The independent review of modern employment practices, led by Matthew Taylor, reports this month, and David Metcalf’s review of labour market enforcement launches next month.
It’s been hinted that Matthew Taylor’s review could recommend an extension of basic employment rights to all workers. But new rights alone will not necessarily promote secure, decent jobs. To try to resolve a workplace issue, workers face navigating a complex landscape of enforcement bodies and paying high employment tribunal fees. In addition, many flexible workers aren’t given control over their hours and access to decent line management is limited.
In the workplace, a right is only as good as its enforcement. Here are three changes that would help promote more secure and decent work in the UK.
1. Create a Fair Work Authority responsible for raising awareness of employment rights and enforcing them
There are over 13 different bodies or teams dealing with different aspects of labour market enforcement, from the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority to HMRC’s National Minimum Wage enforcement team. Not all employment rights have a corresponding enforcement body. Someone with a problem at work is expected to navigate this in order to resolve a workplace dispute or find information about their rights. It’s even more confusing if they have more than one problem.
That duplication also hampers attempts at raising awareness of people’s rights at work, as each enforcement body runs their own campaigns.
One place to go for dealing with a workplace issue would provide clarity and provide consistency to workers and employers, and help to strengthen labour market enforcement. This year, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) surveyed workers in the gig economy and found a quarter of them didn’t know where to go if they needed to complain about their experiences.
Enforcement also needs to be properly resourced. In the UK, evidence from Focus on Labour Exploitation suggests there is just under 1 labour inspector for every 100,000 workers, compared with 4.6 in Ireland, 5.1 in the Netherlands, 12.5 in Belgium and 18.9 in France. Since the 2010 Spending Review, the government has drastically cut funding for labour inspection agencies. The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EASI) budget has dropped by almost half from £932,000 in 2011 to £500,000 last year. A funding increase for National Minimum Wage enforcement and the announcement of Metcalf’s review are positive steps. But more can be done to ensure people can find solutions to workplace problems in a timely way.
2. Cap employment tribunal fees at £50
Another problem is the barrier to redress caused by employment tribunal fees. The next government could help those in insecure work, whose disputes can’t be resolved by conciliation, by at least capping fees at £50 or removing them. Since fees were introduced in 2013, there’s been a 70% reduction in claims. At the same time the success rate at tribunal has not varied, suggesting the fees have not deterred weak claims. Reflecting this evidence, the Women and Equalities Committee, Justice Select Committee and Lord’s Committee on Human Rights have all reviewed the impact of fees and called for them to be reduced.
At Citizens Advice, we’ve seen the impact of the difficulty of resolving workplace disputes. The number of people coming to us for help with problems at work is growing. Our advice pages on employment tribunals have been visited 200% more times since 2013 — rising faster than visits to our website as a whole.
A cap would create an affordable route to tribunal, helping workers resolve employment disputes where conciliation hasn’t worked without taking away the disincentive against weak or vexatious claims.
3. Give people in flexible work more security
Access to good line management is key to productivity and worker security.
74% of people we surveyed said good line management contributes to their overall feeling of security. Poor management costs the UK £84bn per year and, according to Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England, a small improvement in the quality of management could raise productivity by 10%.
Businesses need to ensure their policies are actually being delivered on the ground.
Our polling suggests it is often workers in flexible or insecure work who are least likely to report line management support.
Employers also need to provide the same flexibility to their workers that they expect of them. We surveyed 1000 line managers, and 1 in 5 said their contracted staff didn’t tend to receive more than 48 hours notice of their shift times. Where a worker has no guaranteed hours, they should have a real opportunity to turn down or request different hours. Using technology better to manage rotas and shifts could give workers better control, allowing them to plan, budget and check they’re getting the appropriate entitlements.
Rights are built on redress
The modern economy presents plenty of challenges to decent work. Making rights clearer, and updating them to be more in tune with a rapidly changing jobs market will help.
People’s rights though are only as strong as their ability to enforce them, and only beneficial if they are embraced by employers as well as government. While calling out bad practice can lead to a culture change, our evidence suggests there is a need for more effective enforcement to protect workers from the worst employment practices. Improving how people’s rights at work are enforced and encouraging improvements by employers should form a core part of the Taylor review and any action taken by the new government.
Today’s labour market stats show why Matthew Taylor’s review is so important. Our proposed three changes can be found alongside our full recommendations. The recent election result has caused some uncertainty about what happens next — although with cross-party consensus on the need to improve jobs, a new government shouldn’t delay taking action to help people who lack income security.
