The CoalitionWorking together
TUC
Vulnerable Workers Project – informing strategies for vulnerable workers
The Vulnerable Workers Project (VWP) completed at the end of March 2009. It was a two year pilot funded by DBERR and delivered through SERTUC that aimed to demonstrate good practice in getting a better deal for vulnerable workers. The definition of a ‘vulnerable worker’ used in the VWP focuses on enforcement and is given as ‘someone working in an environment where the risk of being denied employment rights is high and who does not have the capacity or means to protect themselves from that abuse. Both factors need to be present. A worker may be susceptible to vulnerability, but that is only significant if an employer exploits that vulnerability’.
Vulnerable Workers Group discusses working in the informal economy
Working cash-in-hand can have its advantages and disadvantages. The last Vulnerable Workers Group discussed pros and cons for workers in the informal economy. The group included workers who had direct experience of working in the informal economy though they were reluctant to admit this in an open forum.
Advantages that the group gave of working in the informal economy include:
• it gives you more money in your hand;
• it tops up benefits;
• it’s easy and convenient;
• enforcement is weak and you are unlikely to get caught;
• it is accepted in some sectors;
• employers often use it as a filter and offer a legitimate job when one comes up.
However, the group listed more disadvantages than advantages. The disadvantages given included :
• being paid a lower wage than you would receive if working legitimately;
• not being guaranteed to be paid at all;
• no employment rights nor health and safety protection;
• the job would not last;
• no progression opportunities nor training;
• can’t claim benefits when out of work as no National Insurance Contributions have been paid;
• the employer has total control.
Read the full report here
Low pay is a major issue for anyone campaigning against poverty: 57 per cent of children in poverty live in a family where at least one adult has got a paid job. This makes unions’ efforts to organise low paid workers vitally important. For unions, a key concern of recent months has been the exploitation of vulnerable employees like migrant workers and agency workers. The Commission on Vulnerable Employment, established by the TUC, found that two million people are in vulnerable employment - precarious work that places people at risk of continuing poverty and injustice resulting from an imbalance of power in the employer-worker relationship. For the short or full versions of the Commission’s report visit the website: http://www.vulnerableworkers.org.uk/
Britain’s politics is poisoned by stereotypes about and negative attitudes towards people in poverty. That is why, on October 17, the 2008 TUC Poverty Conference will be about Challenging Povertyism; we will look at how politics and the media describe people in poverty and what we can do about it. For more information visit the event website: http://www.tuc.org.uk/events/detail.cfm?event=3008
Latest in the News: http: Call to increase jobseekers allowance
The modernisation of welfare has to take account of the fact that thousands of people find themselves working ‘off the books’ without ever having meant to defraud the system. Community Links has thought carefully about how to help them to declare their work and continue moving from benefits to employment. Undeclared work is wide open to exploitation and abuse, so I hope policy makers will read this report carefully: this is an opportunity for sensible far-reaching reform.
Brendan Barber, General Secretary, Trades Union Congress