Field Notes

The UK has a problem with work and it’s getting worse

By some estimates, half of all jobs are under threat.

That was the tough message from Jon Cruddas MP at the start of a roundtable about wellbeing in the workplace, hosted by the New Economics Foundation in Westminister on February 28. The event was open to the public, making for a lively if disjointed discussion about the challenges of employment in the age of automation. 

Kate Bell from Trades Union Congress introduced two trends: a fall in real wages and a sharp rise in insecure work like self employment and zero hours contracts. One in ten of the workforce is in insecure work, Kate said. 

Around 800,000 people are on insecure contracts and 1.7 million are self-employed. TUC data shows self-employed people earn on average 40 per cent less than employees, costing the Exchequer £4 million a year in taxes. Those people are also missing out on key employment rights, like maternity and paternity pay and sick pay. 

The rise in unstable work is often seen as a consequence of automation, but this isn’t always the case. Kate said jobs in hospitality, education and in social care are growing. This is putting pressure on both public and private profit margins and increasing risks, like work drying up or sickness. These risks are being transferred to employees, away from employers. 

Kate proposed three ways to address changes in the workplace:
  1. Using legislation to shift responsibility for workplace wellbeing back to the employer.
  2. Changing tax to reflect the higher number of self-employed people in the UK, compared to the rest of Europe.
  3. Turn up the volume of workers in the workplace, giving trade unions more of a voice.

Norman Pickavance, a former HR director, agreed that employers should take more responsibility. He suggested changing corporation tax to reflect the amount of time employees take off with stress, making bosses financially accountable for the wellbeing of their workers. 
Yaseen Aslan is the Uber driver who brought the case for the right to employee status to UK courts in October 2016 and has since founded United Private Hire Drivers to support drivers.

He gave some shocking statistics on wellbeing, including that 84 per cent of drivers worry about personal and family finances, while 74 per cent say their family and personal relationships have suffered since they started work.

“If you look at Uber’s construct it’s really clear that they do not take any responsibility for the drivers. Uber says they do cap the number of hours, but drivers have to work 35 hours a week just to offset costs,” Yaseen said. “We believe the law is already there but it’s not being enforced.”

Annie Quick from the New Economics Foundation said she can’t see a future where wellbeing is possible without rethinking ownership of the machines doing the work. “That could mean public ownership or worker co-operatives, but we also need to think about consumer co-operatives,” she said.

At the end of the session, Jon Cruddas called for attendees to contribute to Labour MP Tom Watson’s evidence sessions for the Future of Work Commission.

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