VOTE2019 Better rights for workers
‘WORK TO LIVE, NOT LIVE TO WORK’
Labour will end the dangers of long hours’ working
‘Burnout’ is no longer a vague collection of symptoms – earlier this year the World Health Organisation classified it as an official medical diagnosis, caused by chronic workplace stress.
And it’s British workers who are at greatest risk, working the most hours in the EU – a TUC report found in April.
For far too many working people in the UK, workplace exhaustion is in fact risking lives. A confidential survey of over 4,000 HGV drivers undertaken by Unite last year found that fatigue and tiredness were endemic in the sector.
The survey found that 29 per cent of drivers had fallen asleep at the wheel. For many drivers this did not simply mean that they had momentarily closed their eyes but they could not remember passing junctions or their head had hit the steering wheel.
And a new report commissioned by the Transport for London found similarly dangerous levels of workplace fatigue among the capital’s bus drivers.
“Just recently I had to be up at 4 am, but I couldn’t fall asleep until 1 am because my
body clock and the stress wouldn’t let me,” Unite bus driver and rep John O’Rourke told uniteWORKS. “I’m nodding off at the wheel on my way to work.”
Driving these levels of extreme exhaustion are the UK’s notoriously lax laws – legally drivers can work a 15 hour day, including 10 hours of driving and have just nine hours of rest, before starting work again. This can occur for two consecutive days. But if a Labour government were to be elected on December 13, the working conditions that John and his driver colleagues now endure would end overnight.
In September, shadow chancellor John McDonnell announced Labour would immediately end the UK’s opt-out of the European Working Time Directive, which limits the number of hours people are allowed to work.
But Labour has gone even further, and pledged to reduce the work week to 32 hours in the next decade with no loss of pay, and a right to flexible working from day one.
“We should work to live, not live to work.
“As society got richer, we could spend fewer hours at work,” McDonnell said at Labour’s conference, adding, “It’s time to put that right.”
Unite has praised Labour’s commitment to shortening working hours, especially in light of increased automation.
“We need to drive forward a shorter working week crucially with no loss of pay,” said Unite executive officer Sharon Graham. “And by driving through legislation that workers have a right for a shorter working week. It is totally affordable. It can be won.”
Time for fairworking hours
Labour will
• End ‘opt out’ from EU Working Time Directive
• Propose four new public holidays
• Commit to reduce average full time working week to 32 hours within a decade with no loss of pay
• Right to have flexible working
24 uniteWORKS Winter 2019
12:12
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