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Attention: industrial, social affairs correspondents

Long hours damage family life

Family life is being damaged by long hours working, so the individual opt-out allowing their parents to work over 48 hours a week must be abolished, says a report published today (Friday) by the TUC and charity Working Families.

‘More time for families: tackling the long hours crisis in UK workplaces’ warns that six years after the Working Time Directive was introduced to limit the working week, there are still more employees working over long hours than there were in 1992. In the UK employees can only work over 48 hours if they sign an opt-out, but many long hours workers are never asked or are forced to do so.

It is the families of long hours employees who suffer the most, says the report, with overworked parents simply not having the time to see much of their children during the week or spend much time on family activities at weekends.

To illustrate the problems faced by mums and dads struggling to put in the hours at work and be there for their children, the TUC analysed the responses of a number of parents responding to a survey on the Working Families website.

Of the 89 responding parents, more than four in ten (44%) of the respondents who were working full-time said they regularly had to work more than 48 hours a week, and nine out of ten (90%) of all the parents felt that these kind of excessive hours were harmful to families.

In an attempt to work more child-friendly hours, almost eight in ten of the parents (79%) had asked their employers if they could work flexibly, yet only 40% of these parents were aware that they had a legal right to ask to change their hours. Just over four in ten (43%) of the requests to work flexibly were successful, a quarter (25%) were altered in some way before being agreed, and almost a third (32%) of the requests were rejected by employers.

With long hours causing such a problem for working parents, the report also expresses concern that the flexible working rules introduced last April are too weak to make a significant difference to employees’ lives. From studying the outcomes of a number of flexible working cases that went to employment tribunals, the TUC believes that the tribunals have very limited powers to question employers on their reasons for refusing employees’ requests or to impose fair solutions . This works against parents trying to manage their home and work responsibilities, says the TUC.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'Excessive hours are bad news for everyone and especially damaging for workers with families. Whilst ministers remain wedded to the idea of maintaining the UK’s individual opt-out, the children of long hours parents will go on suffering. A clamp down on employers abusing working time rules and the removal of the opt-out would prove very popular with working parents.'

Working Families Chief Executive Sarah Jackson said: 'We know that parents are struggling to find a balance between work and family life even on a 35 hour week. Callers to our helpline tell us of the desperate problems it causes when employers require them to work long hours. Employees need the right to say no to long hours working, and employers need to recognize how much better it is for business to work smarter, not longer.'

More time for families: tackling the long hours crisis in UK workplaces contains a number of case studies to illustrate how long hours working and employer inflexibility is causing problems for working parents:

• Sarah, a single parent, was working for a supermarket in Norfolk and applied under the flexible working regulations to change her working hours. The supermarket chain had trained their area managers in the new regulations but this had failed to find its way down to store manager level. As a result, the employer failed to comply with the requirements of the regulations, refusing Sarah’s request in writing, over a month after she made her formal request. The tribunal found in Sarah’s favour and ordered a reconsideration of the application. She was awarded a mere £500 in compensation, despite the fact that the tribunal hearing took place over five months after Sarah had put in a valid application under the regulations. Sarah says that all she wanted to do was alter her hours to fit in with the fact that her daughter was starting school. Now she has been forced to find another, less convenient, less well paid job, but is glad that her new employer understands her need to work school-friendly hours and won’t be expecting her to work bank holidays or weekends.

• Peter works in a warehouse, and his shift pattern is arranged to suit his childcare needs. He works nights, which allows him to care for his children in the day, and he has been working in this pattern for over a year. Recently his manager told him that he was being taken off his shift pattern, without any consultation or warning. The company has refused to allow Peter to continue working in his established pattern, despite the impact they know it will have on his family life. Peter has been given just six weeks to find a childminder who can cover for his new working pattern. The company Peter works for is a 24/7 operation, so there is plenty of scope for flexible working. Furthermore, some of Peter’s colleagues have been allowed to carry on working in the usual pattern, and have not been forced to change. Peter’s manager has said that he will not allow Peter to work in his old pattern anymore, and he now feels that he has few choices other than resign or take his employer to a tribunal.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

A copy of More time for families: tackling the long hours crisis in UK workplaces can be found at www.tuc.org.uk/extras/familiesneedtimereport.doc

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Working Families, formerly Parents At Work and New Ways to Work, is a charity which supports and gives a voice to working parents and carers. It also helps employers create workplaces which encourage work-life balance for everyone. We want to change the working world for the benefit of our families, our communities and business.
Contacts:

Media enquiries : TUC - Liz Chinchen T: 020 7467 1248; Pager: 07699 744115; E: media@tuc.org.uk Working Families - Maggy Meade-King on 020 8341 0708 or maggymk@blueyonder.co.uk or Jonathan Swan on 020 7253 7243 or jonathan.swan@workingfamilies.org.uk

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Press release (1,300 words) issued 3 Sep 2004