Notes

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/instemplrighj.1.1.0063
• Pages: 63-82
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018

63

A Manifesto for Labour Law

Notes

1 Professor Lord Wedderburn QC, FBA,

‘Preface’ to Lord Wedderburn, Labour Law

and Freedom (1992).

2 31.42 million in work as at January 2016,

of whom 22.94 million worked full-time

and 8.48 million part-time: ONS, UK

Labour Market: March 2016 (ONS, 16

March 2016).

3 In a quarterly survey in 2011, only 67% of

British workers were satisfied with their

current employer (i.e. some 10 million

were not), a lower score than France

(68%), Germany (68%), Australia (70%),

Belgium (73%), New Zealand (73%), USA

(74%), Netherlands (74%) and Canada

(77%). In the last 11 quarterly surveys,

polling approximately 18,000 workers,

Britain’s employees have been the least

satisfied workers nine times. In terms of

job fulfilment the UK does even worse at

62% expressing job satisfaction (Randstad

UK plc, Fulfilment at Work (2014)). In the

United Kingdom, 15.2 million days were

lost due to stress, depression and anxiety

(categories which exclude serious mental

health problems such as manic depression

and schizophrenia): ONS, Sickness Absence

in the Labour Market, February 2014. Note

the rise in suicide rates and self-harm

caused by the 2008 crash: D Gunnell, J

Donovan, M Barnes, R Davies, K Hawton,

N Kapur, W Hollingworth and C Metcalfe,

The 2008 Global Financial Crisis: Effects on

Mental Health and Suicide (Policy Report

3/2015, University of Bristol, 2015).

4 Around one in three UK workers say they

are affected by workplace bullying: http://

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33993526;

see also ACAS Policy Discussion paper

Seeking Better Solutions: Tackling Bullying

and Ill-treatment in Britain’s Workplaces

(November 2015): http://www.acas.org.uk/

media/pdf/e/b/Seeking-better-solutions-

tackling-bullying-and-ill-treatment-in-

Britains-workplaces.pdf.

5 Unlike several States in Europe, there is

no ‘dual channel’ for democratic partici-

pation; there is no provision for worker

directors or works councils. For the 80%

of British workers who do not have the

benefit of collective bargaining, there is

no way of making their voice heard save

in the almost non-existent but legally

specified situations in which a right to

consultation arises. It is true that many

employers have a (voluntary) grievance

procedure but no one who has any expe-

rience of raising grievances could suggest

that this was a mechanism for workplace

democracy.

6 UK workers have the longest usual work-

ing week of any country in Europe at

42.5 hours: J Cabrita and S Boehmer,

Working Time Developments in the 21st

Century: Work Duration and its Regulation

in the EU (European Foundation for the

Improvement of Living and Working

Conditions, 2016), at pp 54, 56 and 58.

The gap between the usual working hours

for men and for women is much greater in

the United Kingdom than anywhere else in

Europe at 3.2 hours per week. ‘The most

striking finding is that, for both the whole

economy and for the different sectors

included here, the usual weekly working

time is, on average, shorter in countries

with a working time regime where collec-

tive agreements, especially sectoral ones,

play an important role’ (ibid., p 55). In 2015,

some 5.1 million employees put in an extra

7.7 hours (on average) per week in unpaid

overtime worth some £35.1 billion to their

64

A Manifesto for Labour Law

employers: P Sellers, ‘Unpaid Overtime

Can’t be a Blank Cheque’, Touchstoneblog.

org.uk, TUC, 26 February 2016. Since 2010,

the number of people working in excess

of 48 hours has risen by 15% to 3,417,000

(TUC, September 2015 at https://www/

tuc.org.uk/international-issues/europe/

workplace-issues/work-life-balanc/15-

cent-increse-people-working-more).

7 UK workers will share the oldest official

retirement age of any country in Europe

at 68 with Ireland and the Czech Republic

compared with an average of 65.5 across the

developed world: OECD, Pensions at a Glance

2015, OECD and G20 Indicators (2015).

8 At 38% of salary (including both State

and private pensions) compared with

Netherlands at more than 90% and 80% in

Italy and Spain: OECD, ibid.

9 The ILO has reported that of 24 countries

surveyed, the United Kingdom had the fifth

highest level of mismatch of education level

for occupation, with 28.9% of its workforce

in jobs not suited to their education level.

Of this group, 13.9% had a lower than

average education level for their occupa-

tion: ILO, Skills Mismatch in Europe (2014)

(http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/

public/---dgreports/---stat/documents/

publication/wcms_315623.pdf).

10 In 2014, on an output per worker basis,

productivity in the United Kingdom was

19% lower than the average for the rest

of the G7, the widest productivity gap

since records began in 1991. Per hour

worked, UK productivity is 45% lower

than the Netherlands, 36% lower than

Germany, 34% lower than Belgium, 31%

lower than France, 30% lower than Ireland

and the USA, 10% lower than Italy and

5% lower than Spain. UK productivity is

just a fraction higher than it was in 2007,

whilst other countries have increased

their productivity: ONS, International

Comparisons of Productivity, 2014 – Final

Estimates, 18 February 2016; and see J

Dromey, ‘Introduction’ in J Dromey (ed.),

Involvement and Productivity – The Missing

Piece of the Puzzle? (IPA, 2016), pp 1–2.

11 16th position out of 16 European coun-

tries surveyed in R Ray and J Schmitt,

‘No-Vacation Nation USA – A Comparison

of Leave and Holiday in OECD Countries’,

European Economic and Employment

Policy Brief, No. 3 (2007); and see http://

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/

news/uk-paid-leave-holiday-ntitlement-

compares-to-eu-countries-in-europe-

incharts-a6881456.html.

12 16.8% of the UK population were in pov-

erty in 2014, the 12th highest rate in the

EU; between 2011 and 2014, a staggering

32.5% of the UK population experienced

poverty at least once: ONS, Persistent

Poverty in the UK and EY: 2014, ONS, 16

May 2016. The population of the UK in 2014

was 64,596,800 million (http://www.ons.

gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/

populationandmigration/populationesti-

mates). This means that 10,852,000 people

were in poverty in that year.

13 21% of employees (5.5 million people)

were low paid in Great Britain in April

2014, and this proportion has changed

little over 20 years: A Corlett and L

Gardiner, Low Pay Britain 2015 (Resolution

Foundation, 2015), p 18. No less than 22%

of employees (5.7 million) earned less

than the Living Wage, and 5% (1.4 million)

were on the Minimum Wage, ibid., p 19.

The Living Wage Commission found that

‘While overall poverty rates are fall-

ing . . . the natureof poverty is changing

dramatically. For the first time, there are

now more people in working poverty than

out-of-work poverty. 6.7 million of the 13

million people in poverty in the UK are in a

family where someone works. That is 52%

of the total’ (The Living Wage Commission,

Working for Poverty (2014), https://

www.nuj.org.uk/documents/working-for-

poverty-living-wage-commission-report/

living-wage-commission-report-v2-f-1.

pdf). The reversion since the late 1970s to

a Speenhamland system of public subsidy

for low wages and its disastrous effects are

well described in F Wilkinson, ‘The Theory

and Practice of Wage Subsidisation: Some