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1 Vulnerable workers

01 Enforcing employment rights

Congress welcomes improvements in employment rights for vulnerable workers such as the tripartite agreement on agency workers, the National Minimum Wage and the increase in the statutory holiday entitlement. However, without effective enforcement, new employment rights will fail to deliver for all workers.

Congress applauds the work of the Gangmasters' Licensing Authority and believes its remit should be extended to cover all agency labour providers.

Congress believes the work of the National Minimum Wage Compliance Officers and the Health and Safety Executive has been essential in enforcing the National Minimum Wage on health and safety regulations.

Workers and their trade union representatives have no enforcement route for many employment rights except by making an application to an employment tribunal or County Court.

Congress believes that strengthening employment rights' enforcement mechanisms should be a major priority for the trade union movement in the run up to the next general election.

Congress calls on the General Council to lobby for:

i) a better resourced and more extensive pro-active enforcement strategy;

ii) co-ordinated enforcement allowing the various enforcement agencies to share findings and work closely with each other;

iii) a greater role for trade unions in the enforcement process;

iv) a major government awareness and publicity campaign targeted at Britain's most vulnerable workers; and

v) a Fair Employment Commission to be established alongside existing enforcement agencies to provide for co-ordination of employment rights enforcement, as recommended by the TUC Commission on Vulnerable Employment.

Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers

02 National Minimum Wage enforcement

Congress welcomes a number of the measures in the Government's Employment Bill to improve enforcement of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and employment agency standards, including the introduction of penalties and greater powers for enforcement officers. However, the framework for supporting enforcement of employment rights is still deficient in a number of key areas.

Exploitation of workers must be tackled across all industries, including highly competitive and popular professions such as the media and performing arts, where bogus work experience and unpaid work is often offered to a vulnerable workforce.

Congress also supports efforts to tackle exploitation of workers in entertainment and modelling, which are the only sectors where agencies can still charge fees up-front to a work-seeker, often reducing earnings to significantly less than the NMW.

Congress asks the General Council to support the following additional measures to support enforcement of employment rights and tackle exploitation:

i) measures to enable third parties, such as trade unions, to take an employer to an employment tribunal on behalf of a worker for breaches of the NMW Act, without the need to identify individual vulnerable workers;

ii) a ban on agents charging workers up-front fees, so that all workers receive at least the NMW; and

iii) clearer guidance for employers emphasising the limited exceptions to the NMW, including a reference to the fact that performers and television contestants may be classed as workers for these purposes.

Equity

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