Joanne Thomas – Usdaw general secretary says: “We welcome the recent improvements to the right to request flexible working, including removing the length of service requirement. However, the right still operates on the assumption that workers can freely negotiate flexible working, when few have little power to do so. To ask for flexible working continues to be risky for low-paid women workers because they can be perceived as being unreliable or uncommitted. The UK Labour Government’s commitment to making flexible working the default is welcome, as is the right to guaranteed hours and notice of shift change as set out in the Employment Rights Bill, but more needs to be done to level the playing field between workers and managers to rid the labour market of one-sided flexibility.”
Usdaw is calling on the STUC to continue making the case for further changes to strengthen flexible working rights:
- Abolish the restriction on the number of applications an employee can make.
- Extend the right to all workers.
- Introduce the ‘advertising duty’ to outline the flexible working options available when advertising jobs.
- Reintroduce the right to a written decision, a right of appeal and the right to be accompanied in meetings.
- Reintroduce the power of employment tribunals to make wider recommendations.
- Increase the level of penalties for non-compliance.
Turning to the motion on reforming, improving and extending parental leave and pay rights, Joanne Thomas continued: “The UK Labour Government’s commitment to reviewing the current framework of statutory parental leave and pay rights is welcome. Unions have a strong track record of negotiating improvements to parental leave and pay rights for working parents and carers; however, the scale and scope of those improvements is necessarily limited by the current statutory framework of parental leave. Family leave entitlement does not work for millions of families: it does not support families to share caring responsibilities equally and this entrenches the discrimination that women face in the workplace. Improving parental leave and pay rights to achieve more equal parenting is a process that will take many years and require significant investment. The current review represents the start of this process.”
Usdaw is calling for the current system of parental rights to be replaced by a simpler, more equal system:
- Providing stronger rights for each parent.
- Supporting both parents to make meaningful decisions about how they combine paid work with care.
- Reducing pregnancy and maternity discrimination.
- Promoting gender equality and closing the gender pay gap.
At the very least, pay and leave rights must be accessible to all regardless of employment status and available from day one; and individual, stand-alone, paid entitlements.
Any reform must not diminish, but extend and improve, existing rights and should be part of a package of wider reform including improvements to childcare and flexible working.
With regard to Usdaw’s emergency motion on Next Manufacturing in Sri Lanka, Joanne Thomas concluded: “Usdaw wrote to the CEO of Next Retail, raising serious concerns about the treatment of workers at the Next Manufacturing Limited facility in Katunayake, Sri Lanka. The company decided to close their only unionised factory in Sri Lanka, with 1,416 garment workers fired via WhatsApp, without consultation or notice. We are proud that this group of workers successfully won the right to trade union recognition in 2021: a landmark and historic victory which was the only full Collective Bargaining Agreement in Sri Lanka’s garment sector. Despite continued efforts from the global trade union movement to engage with Next, former workers at the site, who are mainly women, now face hunger, homelessness and spiralling debt.”
Usdaw is calling on conference delegates to support the union’s calls:
- For the STUC Women’s committee to work with the STUC General Council to call on Next to engage with the local trade union (FTZ&GSEU), and to reopen the Katunayake factory and reinstate all workers with the same pay, conditions and union recognition.
- For affiliates to share a message of solidarity with affected workers using #NextStopUnionBusting and to share information on ways their members can support the campaign.
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is one of the fastest growing unions in the TUC and the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
For further information please contact Usdaw’s Media Officer, David Williams on: 0161 249 2469, 07798 696 603 or by e-mail to [email protected]
For Usdaw press releases visit: www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Bluesky @usdawunion.bsky.social and Twitter/X @UsdawUnion