Sector-specific ‘good work agreements’ would help address some of the problems facing workers in low-paid jobs, including the widespread use of zero-hours contracts and a lack of training or progression opportunities, a think-tank has argued.
The Resolution Foundation said national protections such as the national minimum wage have a role in improving pay and conditions, but they do not address some of the deeply entrenched problems facing workers in some lower-paid sectors including social care and warehousing.
Trade unions were important for shaping good practice and improving working conditions, it said, but with membership having dramatically fallen over the past four decades, they are no longer as strong as they once were.
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It said that some sectors needed a more targeted approach to improving working conditions, and proposed the creation of “good work agreements” (GWAs). These would bring together workers and employers to collaboratively solve problems facing their sector and address poor-quality work.
Its Putting good work on the table report proposes that worker or employer representatives would need to apply to the government to set up a GWA for their sector. These sectors should have material and specific problems with working standards, falling into four main areas: training and progression, health and safety issues, pay (where there is a clear need for pay to be above the national living wage) and wider terms and conditions (including contractual non-pay aspects of work like irregular shift patterns and provision of basic materials to do their job).
It proposes that a “trailblazer” GWA should be set up in the social care sector to address urgent issues such as “poor pay – likely unlawfully so for domiciliary care workers, once travel time is factored in – inadequate training and unsafe working conditions”.
GWAs in the warehousing and cleaning sectors should follow, the report recommends, as these have a high proportion of working on insecure contracts or with volatile working hours.
Such agreements would need to be enforced on the same statutory basis as existing labour market regulation to give the agreements legal teeth, the Resolution Foundation said.
Hannah Slaughter, senior sconomist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Britain has seen national labour market regulations improve the quality of work in recent decades – most radically via a fast-rising minimum wage. But many of our most deeply entrenched problems in the world of work are specific to particular sectors and roles.
“We now need a new focus on innovative ‘Good Work Agreements’, bringing together worker and employer representatives in the most challenging sectors to set new legally-enforced minimum standards and improve the quality of work.
“There is no better place to start solving these problems than social care – where unlawfully low pay and unsafe working conditions have left damaging worker shortages, and a care system close to collapse.”
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