Workers Rights. Are they Working?
2022 may well be remembered as the year of the Summer of Strikes. From rail workers to criminal barristers, postal workers to the staff of Universities across the country, a growing tide of industries have begun taking action to stand together and make demands: the most important of which is that their rights be respected. Naturally then, industrial action has (love it or loathe it) been at the forefront of the mind of most Britons for months, with increasing agreement amongst academics that the established status quo of the last 30 years - of dwindling support for and membership in unions - might finally be cracking; the post-Thatcher levee breaking under the pressure of labour shortages, tumbling wages and a cost of living crisis.
Now more than ever then, there is an important question that should be asked; nestled as it is, deep beneath the thick carapace of the heavily publicised recriminations, hearings and disputes that have plastered our televisions and Twitter pages. As a worker, what rights do you have?
At face value, our "worker's" rights feel quite obvious, with words like "fair dismissal" and "holiday pay" coming to mind. But it is at this stage that definitions become fiercely important. In the UK there are non-trivial differences between what qualifies as a worker and what qualifies as an employee; workers, for instance, do have contracts, but unlike employment contracts (which make clearly outlined the demands of employees) workers receive contracts for personal performance, think freelance or agency workers. All this is made all the more complex by the existence of the self-employed, who enjoy the least demanding "contracts for service" but obviously do not benefit from the same worker's rights. Now, these definitions might be nice to know, but you would be entirely justified in asking why they matter? The answer can be found by looking at the rights you might not get to enjoy. As a worker, you are usually not entitled to protection against unfair dismissal for example. Furthermore, you are unlikely to enjoy the privilege of being informed when your employment will be ending, or the luck to request flexible working. These are all the reserves of the employed. For the 800,000 people in the UK in agency jobs, this state of affairs often comes as a shocking revelation, especially during the national lockdowns which saw a greater proportion of agency workers laid off than in any other area. None of this should imply that workers’ rights are fiction, they are very real and very important. Workers are still entitled to; earn the minimum wage, enjoy statutory rest breaks and receive statutory holiday pay. Rather it is worth noting, as a worker, the arguable imbalance in protections.
Exercising the rights you do have, then, is imperative. Whether worker or employee you have the right to access employment tribunals when your rights have been infringed and perhaps of greater note in the current climate are your rights to strike. Though there is no specified right to strike in the UK, the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992 ensures that strikes are legal under certain conditions and when organised by a trade union. These unions must be recognised by the workplace and take votes in the form of ballots to strike.
On the back of this, it might come as no surprise to learn that not all employers are amenable to this arrangement: in recent months the industry giant Amazon has fervently declined to recognise any union hosted by its employees. Notwithstanding, hundreds of Amazon workers from the Coventry warehouse, only a stone's throw away from Warwick University, are now looking to make history in the coming weeks by becoming the first in the UK to vote in favour of industrial action. Workers, egged on by the non-cooperation of their employers, staged an informal walkout earlier this year after being told their annual pay rise would increase to £10.50 an hour, only 50p over their previous wages.
As exciting as this news might seem to some, the reality is that workers must remain diligent in respect of these rights. Seemingly retaliatory strikes from the government have now allowed companies to replace striking workers with agency workers under controversial strike-breaking legislation. And though several trade union organisations have taken the government to task over the legality of this response, it partly comes down to each of us individually to fight back against the erosion of our fundamental workers’ rights. Ultimately, whether you wear a hard hat or horsehair wig to work, it is in all our best interest to know how, and if, our rights are working.
