Documents Hayes, Lydia 4 results

"Homecare is a major source of women's low-wage employment in the UK. Practices of unpaid working time are widespread and many workers are not paid in accordance with their existing national minimum wage entitlements. On 1 April 2015, a new duty of well-being in social care came into force and local authorities are required to promote the control of care by service-users. As a consequence, homecare workers will increasingly be engaged in complex multi-lateral work relations and subject to multi-party control. This article examines how the national minimum wage entitlements of homecare workers have been legally interpreted and questions if their entitlements might be adversely affected under provisions of the Care Act 2014. There is a legacy of judicial decision-making in which care-giving is not recognised as ‘work' for the purposes of the national minimum wage. Yet recent decisions have produced a more satisfactory entitlement framework by establishing that employer control over working time determines ‘work'. However, it seems this framework is put at risk by the statutory promotion of service-user control. As work relations are re-cast, contractual relationships in which care-giving falls outside the protection of national minimum wage law will appear increasingly attractive because they may both enhance service-user control and facilitate very low cost labour. Without innovation in legal treatments of multi-party control and sustained attention to the worth of care-giving as employment, the rights of homecare workers are at risk under the Care Act 2014."

"Lydia Hayes and Tonia Novitz begin by recoding the consistent popularity of trade unions. And yet, despite this popularity, trade union membership has declined and the number of workers who currently have their terms and conditions of work negotiated by a trade union has fallen dramatically.
According to the authors, this decline has been shaped by trade union laws which inhibit trade union recruitment, activity and collective bargaining. Attacks on trade union activities by politicians and misrepresentation in the media has fuelled the decline.
The result has been a dramatic increase in levels of economic inequality, reflected in the fact that income differences between top earners and those on the lowest wages are now higher than at any time since records began. The UK now ranks as one of the most unequal societies in the developed world and, according to the authors, current levels of inequality have far exceeded the point at which inequality is proven to be socially corrosive.
So what is to be done? According to the report, as reflected in many of the statistics and graphs provided, there is an historic link between strong trade unionism and more equal societies. Without trade unions, the realities of working life mean that individual workers are under pressure to simply accept the pay and conditions that an employer presents to them. To do otherwise risks missing out on the chance of a job or being dismissed. The bargaining power of trade unions has the potential to defend existing employment conditions, so that new workers are not brought in on lower rates of pay or forced to accept other terms which are inferior.
Nor do the authors simply address the question of pay. They argue that trade unions also impact on issues relating to health, discrimination and security at work as well as encouraging wider political engagement in society.
In an effort to re-boost the role of trade unions in society, the authors conclude with a 6 point policy programme aimed at ensuring that trade unions are once again at the heart of economic, social and industrial policy in the UK."

"Homecare is a major source of women's low-wage employment in the UK. Practices of unpaid working time are widespread and many workers are not paid in accordance with their existing national minimum wage entitlements. On 1 April 2015, a new duty of well-being in social care came into force and local authorities are required to promote the control of care by service-users. As a consequence, homecare workers will increasingly be engaged in complex multi-lateral work relations and subject to multi-party control. This article examines how the national minimum wage entitlements of homecare workers have been legally interpreted and questions if their entitlements might be adversely affected under provisions of the Care Act 2014. There is a legacy of judicial decision-making in which care-giving is not recognised as ‘work' for the purposes of the national minimum wage. Yet recent decisions have produced a more satisfactory entitlement framework by establishing that employer control over working time determines ‘work'. However, it seems this framework is put at risk by the statutory promotion of service-user control. As work relations are re-cast, contractual relationships in which care-giving falls outside the protection of national minimum wage law will appear increasingly attractive because they may both enhance service-user control and facilitate very low cost labour. Without innovation in legal treatments of multi-party control and sustained attention to the worth of care-giving as employment, the rights of homecare workers are at risk under the Care Act 2014."

"In this blog, we throw light on the exploitation of care workers for political profit during the coronavirus pandemic. Across England, Scotland and Wales, between 75% and 97% of the care workforce is employed in the private sector, yet this workforce performs a public service in which the state is morally, legally and financially embedded. The exploitation of care workers by employers is well-documented in accounts of chronic low pay and zero-hours contracts. ..."