should work together to make sure that new technology benefits the UK workforce, through a new future of work commission. It would set out how the government can: • Ensure that new technology is introduced with the consent of workers – with new technology agreements agreed by trade unions in workplaces across the country. • Investigate how to boost productivity across the UK, by investing in new technology that can improve the quality of life. • Ensure that the gains from that productivity are shared with workers, setting out an ambition to move to shorter hours and higher pay. The commission should see moving to a four-day week, with no reduction to living standards, as an ambition for the twenty-first century. • Provide skills training for those at risk of losing their jobs as the workplace changes – with a new learning entitlement for every worker, delivered with advice from a union rep.
TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:
“Workers are having a hard time. They’ve suffered the longest pay squeeze in 200 years. Millions of people are stuck in insecure jobs and stressed out. And too many employers are using tech to treat workers unfairly.
Bosses and shareholders must not be allowed to hoover up all the gains from new tech for themselves. Working people deserve their fair share – and that means using the gains from new tech to raise pay and allow more time with their families. When the TUC’s first Congress took place 150 years ago, people worked ten hours a day with only Sunday off. But in the last century we won a two-day weekend and limits on long hours. This century, we must raise our sights to reduce working time again.
If productivity gains from new technology are even half as good as promised, then the country can afford to make working lives better.”
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Millions of women continue to lose out in the workplace 20 September 2018
Millions of young women being let down in workplace, despite #MeToo and gender pay reporting, says major new report.
A major new report from Young Women’s Trust has found that, despite the #MeToo movement and reforms including gender pay gap reporting, millions of women continue to lose out in the workplace – and mental health inequalities have got worse. A Populus Data Solutions survey of 4,000 young people for the charity shows that, nearly a year on from #MeToo, a third of young women do not know how to report sexual harassment at work and a quarter would be reluctant to do so for fear of losing their job. Despite the introduction of gender pay gap reporting, one in five young women say they are illegally paid less than their male colleagues for the same work. The charity, which supports young women on low or no pay, has released its latest annual survey findings in a report, ‘It’s (still) a rich man’s world’, 100 years on from the first women getting the vote but finds that women still face inequality in all aspects of work. Young women remain more likely to be on low pay, job insecurity has increased, and debt levels have risen. More than a quarter say their financial situation has got worse in the past year. As a result, young women’s mental health concerns are skyrocketing, with four in ten saying they are worried about their mental health.
Some examples of the key findings for England and Wales include:
Sexual harassment is still not being dealt with 15 per cent of young women (some 800,000 young women), have been sexually harassed at work and not reported it – double the number of women who have experienced it and reported it (eight per cent).
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
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