In this major Smith Institute report, Ed Sweeney, the former chair of the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), shows that Britain has too many poor performing workplaces where employees are often badly treated, underpaid, over-worked and ignored. The report argues that this long tail of broken workplaces is holding back the recovery and costing the nation billions in lost income and welfare benefits to those in work.
The report, welcomed by Labour, the TUC, and EEF the employers’ organisation, calls on government to do more to narrow the divide between the rest and the best and to positively intervene to tackle problems at work. The evidence to the report demonstrates the urgent need to improve employment conditions and raise management standards as a means to boosting productivity and making work better for the UK’s 30m workers.
The report is the product of a nine month inquiry on the world of work, involving research, interviews, discussion events around the country and opinion polling. It provides a comprehensive and up to date examination of the good and bad in Britain’s workplaces. It calls for a fresh approach to improving employment practices centred on the idea of ‘workplace citizenship’, with employees having a greater say, new employment rights and support for fair pay: including a right to request extra leave after five years of employment; rights to information on executive pay and low pay; extension of free childcare for working parents and ‘use it or lose it’ parental leave; reform of the ICE regulations to strengthen employee voice; and mandatory living wage contracts in all public procurement.