“People are working far harder for far less.”
We’re in the middle of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in generations, which has become a permanent cost-of-living emergency for millions. Yet the whole political establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.
As a new Government approaches, we need to mobilise for policies that could address the depth of the crises we face, including the 10 ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ demands. To help build this campaign initiative, we are publishing a daily blog on the importance on each of these demands. Today, Siân Errington looks at the demand for “Decent jobs for all”.
A central thread of the austerity actions of the Conservative governments since 2010 has been the nurturing and acceleration of ‘zero hours’ contracts and other forms of insecure work. The initial public outrage and headlines at the sharp rise in zero hour contracts has faded; like food banks it has become grimly normalised. In 2023 it was estimated that six million workers were in insecure work, with 3.4 million in low paid insecure work.
Worryingly, many younger workers are now only experiencing insecure work, and we know from TUC research that Black and Minority Ethnic workers and Disabled workers are more likely to be in insecure work.
It means growing numbers of workers left in the lurch with cancelled shifts, and not knowing week to week, month to month how much they will be paid to cover rents, mortgages and bills and having to cover the cost of childcare that can’t be cancelled or planned at late notice. Insecure work helps enable sexual harassment and bullying, with those in insecure work being fearful about speaking out and enforcing their rights.
In 2017 – so even before the impact of the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis – British workers were already working harder than at anytime in the previous 25 years. Work intensity in this country has increased at a time of an unprecedented nearly two decades of ‘lost wages’. Put simply, people are working far harder for far less.
This has been an acceleration of the longer-term drive to deregulate and de-unionise our economy. It combines with an economic policy that has long disregarded people’s living standards in this country, with one outcome being the high degrees of ‘hidden unemployment’ in some parts of the country – particularly older industrial towns and seaside towns.
It has been well-rehearsed how there is a complete lack of investment in infrastructure for our society such as public transport, decent housing, upgrading our energy system as well as building comprehensive and universal public services. These are measures that can deliver decent jobs, improving people’s living standards both from the jobs created but also by us as a society being able to use and enjoy these better services.
That we have not done this is inescapably part of the story of how we became poorer and sicker as a nation. The quality of work and employment is more and more becoming a cause of ongoing poverty and ill-health. Yet it is rarely discussed in these terms. Instead, we get attack after attack on Britain’s ‘sicknote’ culture, that people need to ‘get back to work’ and generational eye-rolling at social media trends highlighting younger workers being clear they will only work their contracted – and paid – hours.
A new Government needs a plan that tackles insecure working head-on, including banning zero hour contracts and fire-and-rehire, matched by a legal guarantee of the right to flexible work on workers’ not bosses’ terms, and an economic policy that ends austerity in order to achieve full employment.
In the ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ series it has been highlighted how stronger collective and individual employment rights for workers can improve peoples’ working lives; that an economic policy that prioritises creating decent jobs for people across the country as part of our transition to a sustainable economy means investing in our future and how a comprehensive social security system that is inclusive and supportive, raising pay levels and expanding our public services – such as tackling NHS waiting lists and childcare – are all necessary and increasingly urgent actions to address the desperate fall in living standards we have experienced in this country.
The quality and type of jobs we create as a society– and the ones we don’t – is also part of this picture.
The mushrooming of insecure work is a direct result of the policy and investment choices made by government, not just the private sector. The continued drive to greater and greater levels of exploitative work is grinding people into the ground.
With the Government set to change in July, workers can’t afford more inaction. We will have to organise for – and build support for – radical policies that shift power from capital to labour if we are to see real change.
- You can find the Worker’s Can’t Wait demands – and join over 22,000 people in support here.
- We’re publishing a series of articles for each of the Workers Can’t Wait demands, you can find them as they are published here.
