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Workplace Report May 2021
Setting homework’s future - To coincide with the release of LRD’s new booklet, Negotiating the new homeworking landscape, we look at how and where people will be working after the pandemic has passed; Collective bargaining: the UK picture - Previously unpublished figures from the BEIS show that two in five UK jobs had their pay set by a collective agreement last year. Workplace Report looks at the figures behind the facts;Latest case law on pay and equal pay
Pay and prices
Wage growth masks skewed economy (105 words)
Official figures for average weekly earnings in February for regular pay (excluding bonuses) in the whole economy continue to show growth at 4.5%. ...
Open access
Labour Research Department’s Payline database (221 words)
Percentage increases on lowest basic rates (by agreements covered) ... Open access
Average weekly earnings (AWE) (243 words)
Regular pay excluding bonuses. Percentage annual increases ... Open access
Full-time weekly average earnings (33 words)
... Open access
XpertHR (21 words)
Median increases for three months to end of March 2021 ... Open access
Prices (77 words)
1 Retail Prices Index (RPI),
Jan ’87=100 ... Open access
2021 forecasts (40 words)
1 Fourth quarter ... Open access
Bargaining news
Bargaining for trade (782 words)
A recent drop in exports to and from the EU has focussed public attention on trade, as have images of lorries parked up and waiting to cross the ...
Subscribers only
RPI challenge gets green light (196 words)
A judicial review of the government’s decision to align the Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation with the usually-lower CPIH measure from ... Open access
Call for better deal for supply staff (229 words)
The Easter conference of the National Education Union (NEU) took two decisions that could help improve terms and conditions for supply staff (who ... Open access
ScotRail row gets political (340 words)
A row over pay and conditions at Abellio ScotRail has threatened to spill over into the political arena on the eve of elections to the Scottish ... Subscribers only
Ericsson offers 2% to 3.5% (127 words)
The CWU’s pay negotiations with telecoms supplier Ericsson have yielded a “full and final” offer that, if accepted, will see the majority of ... Open access
Changes could hit contractors, union warns (149 words)
Contractors, people who work through an intermediary to provide services to a client, are covered by the off-payroll working rules (IR35). Changes ... Open access
Workers confront fire and rehire (381 words)
The sacking of hundreds of British Gas engineers on 14 April as the company tried to impose worse terms and conditions – and the risk of that being ... Subscribers only
NHS pay set to diverge further (407 words)
Pay in the NHS has long been based on the recommendations of UK-level pay review bodies, but, for several years now, England and the devolved nations ... Subscribers only
Recommendations made for increased job security (316 words)
One year into the Covid crisis, job losses and reduced income have hit thousands of workers in the creative industries, the Bectu sector of Prospect ... Subscribers only
Equality news
Pay gap reporting drops following enforcement lull (380 words)
The number of employers publishing their gender pay gap data has dropped by more than 8,000 according to a new analysis by the CIPD (Chartered ... Subscribers only
TUC rejects report’s structural racism denial (352 words)
“Institutional and structural racism exists in the UK, in both the labour market and wider society,” said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady ... Subscribers only
Over 50s redundancies ‘increased 195% in a year’ (360 words)
Redundancies among the over-50s have increased by 195% in a year, with both the level and rate higher than any other age group, according to research ... Subscribers only
Learning and training news
Flaws found in flagship skills scheme (472 words)
Over 9.4 million jobs are in sectors excluded from the government’s flagship skills policy which was launched last month, according to House of ... Subscribers only
TUC looks afresh at union learning (146 words)
The TUC has announced how it will try to support union learning and build union learning rep (ULR) capacity after the government pulled the plug on ... Open access
Recruitment and organisation news
Action on Amazon campaign launches with ads roll out (303 words)
The Unite general union has added its efforts to those of others taking unionisation to online retail giant Amazon by establishing a confidential ... Subscribers only
Nurses’ union in organising push (127 words)
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is aiming to mobilise its members and train 25,000 of them as organisers by the end of 2022. The move comes in ... Open access
European news
‘Corona-bonus’ this year —but pay increases delayed in Germany (572 words)
Three key pay deals have been signed by Germany’s largest union, IG Metall, in recent weeks, and while all provide for a coronavirus bonus this ... Subscribers only
Portuguese government plans to extend bargaining to new areas (231 words)
The Portuguese government has produced a new green paper on “The future of work 2021”, which after discussion in a tripartite body of unions, ... Open access
Spanish big stores sign two-year deal (126 words)
The employers’ association representing some of the largest retail groups in Spain, including the department store chain, El Corte Inglés, the ... Open access
Finnish tech employers allow move to company-level deals (135 words)
The Finnish technology industries employers’ association is to reorganise itself in a way which will make it easier for companies to negotiate at ... Open access
Law - Pay
Wages - the law (431 words)
A National Minimum Wage (NMW) was introduced by the Labour government under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 (NMWA). The details are set out in the ... Subscribers only
Supreme Court rules against sleep-in pay for care workers (1,061 words)
Claire Tomlinson-Blake was a care support worker employed by the Royal Mencap Society from 2004 to 2017 as part of a team that provided 24-hour care ... Subscribers only
National Minimum Wage claim limited to two years (550 words)
Mrs Miles was employed as a housekeeper at a bed and breakfast hostel outside Abergavenny from January 2015 until her resignation in May 2018. It had ... Subscribers only
Sash Window case does not apply if holiday taken (517 words)
Some eight years after having issued his claim and having had his status as a “worker” confirmed by the Supreme Court, plumbing and heating ... Subscribers only
Equal pay - the law (234 words)
The equality of terms provisions of the Equality Act 2010 (EA 10) provide that a person employed on work that is equal to that of a comparator of the ... Open access
Retail workers can compare terms with distribution workers (1,050 words)
A group of retail employees, the majority of them women, employed by Asda Stores Ltd, brought equal pay claims asserting that they were entitled to ... Subscribers only
Order for disclosure was legitimate (445 words)
Around 9,000 hourly-paid store-based employees or former employees of Tesco brought equal value claims seeking to compare their terms with male ... Subscribers only
Health & safety news
Study examines homeworking and mental health (297 words)
Some 40% of homeworkers say their mental health has worsened during the pandemic, according to a preliminary analysis of a survey of more than 3,000 ... Subscribers only
Prison educators strike for safety (160 words)
UCU lecturers’ union prison education members are due to strike for two days this month, following a one-day walk-out scheduled last month at 49 ... Open access
Union wants safeguards over hi tech kit (272 words)
Unite has called for safeguards to protect workers from the “unintended consequences” of hi-tech monitoring after technology company Kenzen ... Subscribers only
Law ‘failing to keep pace’ with AI at work (179 words)
Employment law is failing to keep pace with the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) at work, according to a new report for the TUC by ... Open access
Short notice shifts ‘harm health’ (121 words)
Short notice shifts are damaging workers’ health and destroying family life, says the Unite general union. It issued its warning after a survey by ... Open access
Health & safety - HSE Monitor
HSE data reveals 367 work-linked Covid deaths (276 words)
A freedom of information request by general union the GMB to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has revealed a toll of 367 deaths and 31,000 ... Subscribers only
Spot checks underline ventilation urgency (241 words)
Health unions are pushing NHS trusts and boards to do more to tackle poor ventilation after HSE Covid spot check inspections across 17 acute hospital ... Open access
Insecure workers ‘twice as likely to die’ (244 words)
A new TUC analysis shows that gig economy and other workers on precarious contracts are twice as likely to die from Covid-19 than those in more ... Open access
New advice on stress (287 words)
The HSE is urging employers to review the factors causing work-related stress after a year in which workers have been subject to “new challenges ... Subscribers only
Features
Setting homework’s future (3,263 words)
Covid-19 affected everyone’s working lives. Now, as lockdown restrictions start to ease, everything could change again. To coincide with the ... Open access
Collective bargaining: the UK picture (1,494 words)
Since the 1970s the story of collective bargaining coverage in the UK has been one of steady decline. However, previously unpublished figures from ... Subscribers only