Careworker Mitsy tells her story
The article ‘UNISON means? Confidence, learning and not getting a pay cut’ first appeared on the UNISON site.Read more…
Investigate now call
A co-ordinated inquiry should be launched to investigate serious allegations about pay and working practices at Sports Direct, MPs who are Unite members have said. Undercover reporters from…Read more…
Zero hours jobs leap
At least 744,000 jobs in the UK come with zero hours contracts, a 20% rise in the last year alone, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics. The TUC estimates there are…Read more…
Better than zero flashmob protest
On Friday (August 28) a group of young activists gathered outside trendy bars and restaurants on Glasgow’s Ashton Lane to protest at a multi-million pound chain paying staff below the living wage. …Read more…
One in four offered insecure work
As the government attempts to downplay just how pervasive zero-hours contracts (ZHCs) have become, a new report released today (August 20) has revealed that one in four unemployed adults have been…Read more…
‘Guilty’ young exiled to bootcamp
What does the word bootcamp conjure up for you? Military recruit training? A type of correctional facility or penal system? Imagine being a young person, fresh out of school, trying your…Read more…
When life beyond work ceases to exist
The number of people on zero-hours contracts, in which workers are not guaranteed any hours of work, is notoriously difficult to calculate. While the scale of the zero-hours epidemic is not…Read more…
‘Bleeding’ us dry
‘Vampire’ Sajid Javid comes from the working class so why is he bleeding us of all our rights? Sajid Javid is the son of a bus driver who sits at the Cabinet table, the proud embodiment of the…Read more…
Council signs up to Fight for 5
We have just learned that a Unite young activist has signed his employer up to Unite’s #fightfor5 pledge for decent work for all. Joe McGurk (pictured), who is part of Unite’s youth committee and…Read more…
A bit more than a ban on ‘zero hours abuse’
There was a lot in the Labour Party’s Manifesto for Work that echoes things unions have been calling for for a long time now.Read more…
How do you solve a problem like measurement of zero-hours contracts?
We know a fair deal about the detrimental growth of zero-hours contracts in the UK labour market. We know that workers on them cannot depend on how much money they will bring home or what childcare they will need from week to week. We know that typical…Read more…
Same pay for the same job – is that too much to ask?
The TUC is putting the issues of low pay, poor job security and increasing living costs in the spotlight with Fair Pay Fortnight. Here is a contact centre worker’s personal account of being employed…Read more…
Home care workers. Caring, professional and treated like shit
My Dad, who died 18 months back, had home care help in the last years of his illness. My Mum moved mountains to keep him at home, where he needed to be, but what she achieved simply wouldn’t have…Read more…
#DecentJobsWeek: Unions are scoring successes against casualisation
The fall in the numbers of workers covered by agreements negotiated by trade unions is the key reason for the rise in low-paid and casual jobs in the UK. In 2013, 29 per cent of working people in the…Read more…
#DecentJobsWeek: This exploitation of agency workers must end
Tina is a qualified further education lecturer employed through an agency which forced her to sign a permanent contract of employment. She is only paid for the time she spends teaching but not for planning or attending meetings. Because she only teaches 24 hours a week she can’t claim working tax…Read more…
‘Flexible’ employment: the winners and the losers
Government and industry often argue that the flexibility of casualised ‘zero hours’ jobs benefits both employers and workers. The advantages for employers are abundantly clear. But what’s in it for…Read more…
Precarious recovery: Restoring decent jobs at the European level
Zero hour contracts have hit the headlines in the UK, and rightly so there are 1.4 million British workers on these contracts. But they are not just an issue here, they’re increasingly an problem across the whole of Europe too. With unemployment rates perilously high across the European Union,…Read more…
#DecentJobsWeek: £6 an hour pay and no security – life in a zero-hours college
When people think about poverty pay and zero-hours contracts, universities and colleges aren’t usually the first workplaces that spring to mind. So it may come as a surprise to learn that 46% of…Read more…
#DecentJobsWeek: Time to end the two-tier workforce
If the government is to be believed we should all be feeling more secure because the numbers in employment are rising. However, the reality is very different for many in precarious work, where exploitation is the norm and there is no prospect of escape or hope that things will improve. Employers…Read more…
#DecentJobsWeek: I love being a home care worker, but I hate the insecurity
Oh joy! Today I received a letter from HMRC stating I have been overpaid tax credits in relation to my childcare costs. I will have to pay back any money owed and may face a penalty for failure to inform them of a change in my circumstances. I would never knowingly claim money fraudulently, and…Read more…