Changing Times News Number 61 25 July 2005
Changing Times News is the TUC’s fortnightly online bulletin on work-life balance issues. Visit the website at http://www.tuc.org.uk/changingtimes
Edited by Rory O'Neill of Hazards magazine. Comments to Jo Morris. To unsubscribe or subscribe to this bulletin, click here. Past issues are available.
CONTENTS
Union news : Progress 'glacial' on work-life balance, says TUC * UNISON backs the Maternity Alliance * Landmark legal case triumph for overworked staff * UNISON's Time Team dig for 'Town-Life' balance
Other news : Model approach for NHS work-life balance * Studies show workers are missing out * EOC's action plan for government * European push for better ways of working * Brit mums have fewer work opportunities * News in brief
Training : Finding a work-life balance course
International news : Canada: ILO recognises union’s gender equality work * Global: Norway’s the daddy * Global: Employers working on gender at work * Global round-up
UNION NEWS
Progress 'glacial' on work-life balance, says TUC
Progress on work-life balance in the UK has been 'glacial', the TUC has said. Commenting on the first findings of the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: 'There has been some small improvements in work-life balance since the 1998 survey, but progress has been glacial. Two-thirds of the managers (65 per cent) in the survey still take the view that their staff's work life balance is nothing to do with them. This may be better than the 84 per cent in the last survey, but there is still a very long way to go.' The TUC leader added that most staff have not seen much difference. 'There is an increase of just three per cent in the proportion of staff (55 per cent to 58 per cent) who think their manager understands their work-life balance needs. All the real progress seems to have been made in areas where the law has changed, such as parental leave. It seems that only a minority of good employers will make progress without giving employees more rights.' He said it was depressing that more than one in 10 of the workforce (11 per cent) are still working more than 48 hours a week. 'It's hard to have any work-life balance when you work these excess hours, but this is an area where the government is still shamefully resisting change though their opposition to ending the UK's opt out from European working time rules.'
TUC news release . DTI news release and Inside the Workplace: First Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey [ pdf ]. ACAS news release . ESRC news release . EOC news release . The Guardian .
TUC It’s about time! campaign .
UNISON backs the Maternity Alliance
Public sector union UNISON is backing the work of Maternity Alliance, the national charity campaigning for pregnant women and new parents. With the union’s support, Maternity Alliance has updated three of their best selling booklets, ‘Pregnant at work’, ‘Child-friendly working hours’ and ‘Time off for working parents’. The revised resources provide accurate, up-to-the-minute information on rights and benefits for new parents and employers. Dave Prentis, UNISON's general secretary, said: 'As a trade union with over 1.3 million members, a million of which are women, we recognise the challenges that parents’ face when trying to balance home and work. UNISON will continue to work with Maternity Alliance to campaign for improved rights for parents.' Maternity Alliance’s Katie Wood, said: 'Most new families find that their income drops during maternity and paternity leave. We hope that our three core leaflets will give pregnant women and parents with small babies more choices and a better start.' As well as a series of frequently asked questions, the booklets provide a summary of rights and the benefits available to new parents during pregnancy and maternity leave, changing working hours to fit in with caring for children, paternity leave for fathers and rights to time off for parents of young children.
Maternity Alliance news release, 28 June . The leaflets cost £2 each or £5 for all three. Publications Department , Maternity Alliance, 2-6 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AY. Tel: 020 7490 7639.
Landmark legal case triumph for overworked staff
A pub landlord who collapsed due to overwork and successfully sued his former employer for failing to cut down on his hours has won a 'landmark' appeal court victory, says his union TGWU. The ruling will have businesses across the UK re-thinking their employees’ working hours, according to the union’s solicitors, Leo Abse & Cohen. The appeal was heard last month by Lord Phillips, Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Dyson and Lord Justice Wall at Cardiff Crown Court. The UK’s most senior civil court judge and his colleagues unanimously dismissed an appeal by Six Continents Retail, formerly Bass, to reverse the decision to award pub manager Mark Hone £21,000, after he successfully sued them for breaching a duty of care last year. Mr Hone suffered a collapse and anxiety disorder in 2000 after he worked an average of 90 hours a week in one of their pubs in Luton. Rhian Ashton of Leo Abse & Cohen represented Mr Hone and said: 'This case helps define how an employer can and cannot treat an employee in more detail than ever before. It took four years to get to this stage, but my client is satisfied with the outcome and hopes the case serves as a warning to other employers that they cannot impose excessive working hours on their staff. This should also be a wake-up call to any business that doesn’t have a working time policy in place to protect the health and safety of their employees.'
UNISON's Time Team dig for 'Town-Life' balance
UNISON has applied its own twist to the back-to-the-future story, with an innovative scheme that allows members to get involved with a major archaeological dig. The remarkable 'Town-Life' Iron Age and Roman archaeological excavation in Silchester, which has been featured on Channel 4’s ‘Time Team’, is to be opened up to UNISON members and public sector workers. This latest initiative from the union’s Open College shows there is more to unions than a concern for working conditions today and aims to open up new learning opportunities to as wide an audience as possible. The union wants to encourage people who may have traditionally been excluded from learning to get involved in UNISON’s innovative learning programmes. UNISON’s Steve Williams said: 'We are excited at our partnership with the University of Reading and expect many UNISON members to come along and find out what a fascinating and rewarding subject archaeology can be.' Professor Michael Fulford, director of the Silchester Town-Life project, said: 'UNISON visitors will have the opportunity of learning from University staff and students about one of the University's flagship research projects and how easy, as ordinary members of the public, it is to participate and learn about our past.'
OTHER NEWS
Model approach for NHS work-life balance
A landmark project is encouraging NHS staff to strike a healthy balance between their work and their home lives. The South West London Strategic Health Authority initiative deals head on with the twin aims of allowing staff to fit their working hours around the needs of their children or dependants while still continuing to deliver a good service for patients and users. Marisa Howes, who co-ordinated production of the new ‘Changing times in health’ resource pack, said: 'The aim is to improve services while meeting workforce needs. It is important to look at how you deal with extended opening hours and how to get a fair distribution of flexible working within a team.' She added that is was 'not just for staff who have dependants. We want to help everyone to get a good work life balance so that staff can combine work with other pursuits such as learning, sport, travel or hobbies.' TUC was involved in the development of the project, and the guide was co-sponsored with the NHS by TUC, UNISON, Amicus and NHS employers. A pilot project in Croydon demonstrated it was possible to combine both good service provision for patients with good work-life balance for staff.
SWLSHA news release and Changing Times in Health report.
Studies show workers are missing out
New studies show UK workers are missing out on work-life balance and would like shorter working hours. Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) boffins investigated the relationship between work and home life, notably the hours people put in - or are required to put in - at work. Research by René Böheim and Mark Taylor found 40 per cent of employees would prefer to work different hours. Of these, the majority would prefer to reduce their hours. They found women who would like to reduce their working hours are more likely than other employed women to leave work. The researchers suggest this could indicate there are too few employers offering jobs that require relatively short hours. Research by Mark Bryan found relatively few workers move jobs based on their hours preferences, suggesting that moving jobs can be difficult and costly. He also found that within firms, married men work more hours (by about half an hour) and married women work fewer hours (by about an hour). The largest effects are for mothers. The average woman with a child under 12 works six hours less a week than a comparable woman in the same firm with no children.
ISER news release . The work-life balance papers are published in ‘Taking the long view: The ISER report 2004/5’ [pdf].
EOC's action plan for government
Britain is stuck in the past, says the Equal Opportunity’s Commission (EOC), which is now challenging the government to 'unlock the potential' of women at work. Women working part-time are earning 40 per cent less per hour than men working full-time, virtually the same as 30 years ago, EOC says. It adds that family life has changed out of all recognition and firms today are 24/7 global businesses, 'yet the way we organise work has hardly changed. Women are nearly half the workforce, doing well in education but still face barriers in employment.' It concludes: 'It's time for radical action to close the pay gap, release Britain's full economic potential and make important space and time for caring for children and older relatives.' EOC says the action plan builds on its 2004 summit at No.11 Downing Street, which brought together representatives from government, business, trade unions and other leading organisations to look at the case for reducing sex inequality and increasing Britain's productivity. The six key points in EOC’s action plan for government are: Decisive action to close the pay gap; open up job choices; deal positively with pregnancy at work; support parents and carers; guarantee everyone a decent pension; and transform public services.
EOC news release. EOC's action plan for government, in full [pdf] and summary [pdf].
European push for better ways of working
The European Union needs to find new ways of balancing work and family life if it is to face the demographic and economic challenges ahead, top Commission officials have said. The European Commission says failure to do so would directly hit Europe's future economic growth, as well as putting a potentially unbearable burden on women's shoulders. European Commission employment, social affairs and equal opportunities commissioner Vladimír Špidla, speaking at an 11 July conference on 'Confronting demographic changes: a new solidarity between generations', said: 'Between now and 2030, a loss of 21 million people of working age, or 7 per cent of the workforce, will see Europe's potential growth decline from 2 per cent today to 1.5 per cent as soon as 2015 and to as little as 1.25 per cent in 2040.' He told the European Commission organised conference: 'We must pull out all the stops to react to this. Either we help out or we lose out.' The event, part of a Green Paper consultation process, considered measures including increased gender equality at work, promoting flexible retirement age, reducing barriers to higher birth rates, reconciling family care and paid work, and managing migration and integration.
EC news release and conference papers . Green Paper, Confronting demographic change: a new solidarity between the generations . EC webpage for responses to the Green Paper.
Brit mums have fewer work opportunities
A lack of childcare and the cost of the care that is available are keeping British women out of work. New research comparing working mothers in different European countries indicates there is insufficient day care in the UK and the care that is available is the most expensive in Europe. The study findings, presented at an Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) conference on 30 June, compared women with and without dependent children in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK. A British mother with children under two years of age lowers her chances of staying in full-time employment by 10 per cent per child, the study found. These women tend to change to part-time employment or become economically inactive instead. In contrast, Danish women, who have access to better childcare provision, 'have no substantially positive or negative labour supply effects with respect to an increasing number of kids, regardless of their children’s age.' Study author Lutz Kaiser, of the Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA) in Germany, said: 'A new gender contract concerning labour market modernisation may be based on simple legal non-discrimination acts. Accordingly, modernisation could be interpreted as phasing the state out of the fields of active social policy and welfare.' Kaiser added: 'Conversely, modernisation can be discussed as an approach to restructure the welfare state- and labour market-regime in order to supply manpower with ‘diverse abilities’ to cope with labour market transitions (employability, care-ability, adaptability, etc).'
NEWS IN BRIEF
President Blair: Unions from across Europe are calling for action on workplace issues including working time during the UK presidency of the European Union, to run for six months from July 2005. European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) general secretary John Monks led a 28 June delegation to Downing Street to present the ‘Trade Union Memorandum,’ a list of key priorities including an end the individual 48-hour working week ‘opt-out’ provision, progress on the draft directive on temporary agency workers and gender equality in all areas of policy-making. ETUC news release. Trade Union Memorandum.
Tory tirade: The Tories say they are stepping up the pressure on the government 'to slash back on red tape rules undermining British business and making life unnecessarily difficult for people and families.' The July Commons call came from Conservative shadow deregulation secretary John Redwood MP. Conservatives.com . The Guardian .
Holiday broke :Families across the UK will face an average bill of almost £76 per week for their children’s day care during the school summer holidays this year, according to a Daycare Trust survey. Susan Crane of the Daycare Trust said: 'It is at times like these that the benefits of working for some families can become marginal with the cost of childcare consuming a large part of a family’s income.' Daycare Trust news release .
Workaholidays: Britons put in 36 million hours of free overtime each year with one in three refusing to take all their holidays, fearing a backlog of work when they return, according to a Chartered Management Institute study. CMI’s Jo Causon said the unpaid work is saving bosses around £1 billion a year, and added: 'The pressure to perform has led to Britain becoming a nation of workaholics.' CMI news release . UNISON news release.
Not satisfactory: The average level of job satisfaction among women workers has been falling for 15 years, despite greater equality in the workplace and flexible working laws. An Economic and Social Research Council study based on about 25,000 British women employees shows that women workers used to have significantly higher levels of job satisfaction than men in the UK, but now they have almost the same level as male workers. Personnel Today .
Silent suffering: More than seven in 10 pregnant women treated unfairly at work are suffering in silence, according to a report from the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). It says its investigation shows unless the current situation changes, one million pregnant women are likely to experience discrimination at work over the next five years. EOC news release . UNISON news release. BBC News Online.
Illegal firm: GMB is taking a firm of solicitors to Employment Tribunal over the sacking of a pregnant worker. Derrinda Bilgin was fired from Foskett, Marr, Gadsby & Head Solicitors in Epping, prompting GMB’s Stephanie Attwood to comment: 'It is deplorable that firms such as this are still operating mediaeval practices in the 21st century.' GMB news release.
Pay gap: The pay gap between women and men will not close unless there is a radical rethink of equality laws, says the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). EOC acting chair Jenny Watson said: 'Without action, Britain's women will continue to be condemned to the indignity and injustice of unequal pay, and employers will bear the risk of costly tribunal cases for a generation to come.' EOC news release.
Tribunals plummet: Latest Employment Tribunals Service figures show there was a 25 per cent drop in the number of tribunals in 2004/5 compared to the previous year. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said 'the government should investigate whether the drop in tribunal claims is down to better practices in all workplaces, as opposed to unreasonable barriers blocking claims.' TUC news release. DTI news release. CBI news release. BBC News Online .
Time trouble: Civil service union PCS says it will be doing everything possible to overturn a Court of Appeal decision which reverses important case law on sick workers’ entitlement to four weeks annual leave. Workers absent on long term sick leave had been entitled to take 4 weeks statutory leave under the Working Time Regulations until the appeal court ruling. PCS news release.
Temporary trap :Most temporary workers in Scotland's public sector lag behind full-time colleagues in terms of wages, sickness and holiday pay. A UNISON survey found that workers felt trapped in low-paid jobs with little chance of career progression, prompting the union to publish a booklet to advise workers on their rights. BBC News Online.
Modern families: The proportion of lone parents who were working rose to 54 per cent in 2004, according to an article in the July issue of Labour Market Trends, published by the Office for National Statistics. Analysis of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) showed that there were 7.3 million working-age families with dependent children in spring 2004, of which 5.5 million were headed by a couple and 1.9 million were headed by a lone parent. National Statistics news release.
No sweat shops: Staff turnover in call centres remains some 25 per cent higher than in other workplaces, but operators who embrace flexible working and offer better benefits can shed themselves of their sweatshop image. A study by Britain's Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Institute of Customer Service and Aston Business School found that call centres which addressed work-life balance and flexible working issues experienced better results and reduced staff turnover. Management-issues .
Career fear: Flexible working has not caught on as well as it might as employees fear the impact it may have on their career prospects. Most human resources professionals think employees are too afraid to take flexible working for fear of hindering their career prospects, according to a study by Croner HR. Management-issues . Personnel Today.
Childcare model: A new study published by the Daycare Trust shows how the best early education and childcare services in the world are designed and delivered. The trust’s policy manager Daniela Reale said: 'This report shows that to achieve world-class services for all our children we need a world-class, highly qualified and skilled workforce and world-class funding', but warns the UK is lagging, spending just 0.54 per cent of GDP on early education and care. Daycare Trust news release.
TRAINING
Finding a work-life balance course
From September 2005, TUC Education is running an online version of its popular work-life balance course. It offers the same high quality materials, the same tutor support, the same networking with other union reps - but online, from your workplace, learning centre or home. Reps will access the course via the internet and work interactively on tasks with tutors and other course participants. The 30-hour courses will be run flexibly over 10 weeks so that you can learn at your own pace, at a time and in a place that suits you. Although designed for union reps, the course can also be offered for joint union-management training, since it promotes the view that the most successful employers, private or public, involve staff and unions in decisions about change, consider their needs and aspirations and seek to win their commitment to new ways of working.
Course information and application form . The course is free. Further information email: Craig Hawkins, telephone 020 7467 1381.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Canada: ILO recognises union’s gender equality work
The International Labour Organisation has showcased the work of Canadian autoworker’s union CAW in its dossier of gender equality good practice in the workplace. The compilation of 25 cases histories, ‘Gender equality and decent work: Good practices at the workplace’, recognises CAW’s long history of fighting for women’s rights at work. The ILO Bureau for Gender Equality publication highlights CAW’s activities on gender equality including seeking gender-balanced representation in organising, undertaking gender-related research and negotiating gender-sensitive collective agreements. Other activities include bargaining for 'women’s advocates' within major Canadian companies. The CAW's women's department has been pushing gender equality in the male-dominated union, with female membership of just over 34 per cent. 'Working closely with departments, staff, and the top leadership of the union ensures that CAW women's department programmes and policies are widely supported and therefore implemented', said Julie White, the CAW's director of women's programmes. Buzz Hargrove, president of the CAW, said: 'The involvement and activism of so many women in our union has made our union better and stronger'. CAW was the first Canadian union to negotiate an employer-financed childcare fund.
ILO news release. Gender equality and decent work: Good practices at the workplace, ILO Bureau for Gender Equality. ILO gender publications. IMF news release .
Global: Norway’s the daddy
A newly published ILO study, ‘Gender equality and decent work: Good practices at the workplace’, shows that Norway grants the longest-paid paternity leave after the birth of a child, in addition to the mother's 11 months. Drawing on the practices and experiences of 25 countries, the ILO study shows how governments, employers' organisations and trade unions around the world bring gender equality into their institutional structures, policies, programmes and activities. Most countries in the European Union (EU) offer paid paternity leave, from two days in Spain to two weeks in France, while Norway - which is outside the EU - tops the list as the most family-friendly country with a full four weeks. The Norwegian government has pursued an active policy of promoting gender equality since 1978. The implementation of this policy is the responsibility of the Unit for Gender Equality located in the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, the Gender Equality Ombudsperson, and the Centre for Gender Equality.
ILO World of Work magazine.
Global: Employers working on gender at work
ILO's Bureau for Employers Activities, ACTEMP, has pulled together 10 cases histories on workplace gender equality measures that 'describe the wide range of action that is being taken on the issue of gender equity by employers' organisations from countries at different levels of development. They also highlight the pressures and business reasons that are making it ever more necessary for employers and their representative organisations to take action and ensure that their voices are heard on this important issue.' ILO says the case studies also show the increasingly widespread acceptance of the principle of gender equity at all levels of society. Several of the studies refer to the relevant ILO standards, and more particularly to ILO conventions number 100 on equal remuneration and number 111 on equality of opportunity and treatment, which have been ratified by over 90 per cent of ILO member states. These two instruments belong to the 'fundamental' conventions under the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. This declaration commits ILO member states to respect and promote these principles and rights, including the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation, irrespective of whether they have ratified the relevant conventions.
ILO news release. Employers' organisations taking the lead on gender equality, Case studies from 10 countries, Bureau for Employers' Activities, ILO, 2005. ACTEMP.
GLOBAL ROUND-UP
Feeling better: US women report higher job satisfaction than men - and it’s greater job flexibility that appears to account for the difference. A study has found women receive a large and highly significant increase in job satisfaction when their job does not force them to choose between their family and their job, adding women in female dominated workplaces may report higher job satisfaction because they value job flexibility and so choose to dominate the workplaces that provide job flexibility. Keith A. Bender, Susan M Donohue, and John S Heywood, Job satisfaction and gender segregation, Oxford Economic Papers, vol.57(3), pages479-496, 2005 [abstract].
Rights attack : Employers may be able to cut the annual holiday entitlements of Australian workers from four to just two weeks a year under the federal government’s new industrial relations laws. Sharan Burrow, president of national union federation ACTU, added: 'Under the government’s industrial relations plans employees face being pushed onto individual contracts that could cut their pay and job entitlements and around four million employees will also lose protection from unfair dismissal.' ACTU news release. TUC news release.
Pregnancy compensation: An Australian childcare worker sacked for being pregnant has earned six months compensation, in defiance of moves by the federal government to block unfair dismissal rights. Ian Cambridge, Industrial Relations Commissioner in New South Wales, said the injustice of the sacking of Lisa-Maree Wintle provided a 'case study for the protection provided by unfair dismissal laws.' ACTU news release.
Search for balance: The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's Sex Discrimination Unit has launched a discussion paper, Striking the Balance: Women, men, work and family. It is concerned with the choices women and men make about how they spend their unpaid work time, and the effect these choices have on their opportunities for paid work, particularly legislative, cultural and attitudinal constraints in the worlds of paid and unpaid work. Discussion paper.
Newsletter (4,500 words) issued 25 Jul 2005
