Joanne Thomas – Usdaw general secretary says: “Young workers can be disproportionately impacted by issues at work. Thanks to Usdaw’s campaigning and a Labour Government delivering, we can see clear changes which will have a positive impact on the lives of young workers. These include better sick pay provisions, working towards the removal of age-discriminatory pay for over 18s, tackling sexual harassment in the workplace and protecting retail workers from
threats, abuse and violence.
“Many of our young members will have personal experiences of these issues. Working unsocial shifts, being unable to serve age-restricted goods and being seen as an easy target for customers can all impact young workers. With the changes in employment rights coming through, there has never been a better time to talk to young workers about the benefits of joining the union.
“I’d like to thank all our members, reps and officials who are out campaigning this week, highlighting the all-year-round work Usdaw does to deliver for members and improve workers’ lives. I am looking forward to a great week where we can continue to campaign so that all young workers have a better experience of work.”
In just under two years, Labour in Government is delivering:
Better pay with progress on their commitment to remove discriminatory age bands from the minimum wage so every adult worker receives the full rate.
Action to tackle violence, threats and abuse against retail workers with:
- A specific offence of assaulting a shop worker.
- Respect Orders to punish offenders.
- Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, with a named officer in every community.
The Employment Rights Act, which will:
- Require employers to protect staff from customer harassment.
- Make paternity, parental and bereavement leave available from day one.
- Require employers to give reasonable notice of shift changes and cancellations.
- Make flexible working the default, unless the employer proves it is unreasonable.
- Provide statutory rights for workplace equalities representatives.
- Ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, with a right to a regular-hours contract.
- Make Statutory Sick Pay available from day one of absence for all workers.
- Challenge unfair dismissal after 6 months in a job, instead of 2 years.
- Improve redundancy consultation.
- Introduce fair and reasonable access to workplaces for trade unions.
- Give workers an effective voice by simplifying trade union recognition.
- Ban fire and rehire in all but the most extreme circumstances.
- Put enforcement of employment rights into a single fair work agency.
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 with around 370,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also represents many workers in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
For Usdaw press releases visit: www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Bluesky @usdawunion.bsky.social and Twitter/X @UsdawUnion