ROBYNDASEY, SPEAKING AT THE TUC WOMENS CONFERENCE 13TH MARCH 2002

 

 

COMPOSITE MOTION 3: WORKING HOURS AND WORK LIFEBALANCE.

 

A women from Venus, landing today on this patch ofEarth called Britain, and observing the way work is organised, could quite logicallyconclude we are all Mad.

 

       4 millions Britains, mostly men work more than 48hours a week

       1.6 million Britain, mostly women, work part timebut want or need to work more hours.

 

Many men work the longest hours in Europe toprovide for their families.

 

Many women work an array of short hour, part timejobs to enable them to care for their families.

 

Conference, this is no way to ensure the wellbeing and support of workers ortheir children, or grandparents.

 

v     First

Too much work is bad foryour health.

 

The risk of work related health problems rises withthe number of hours worked.

Cardio-vascular disorders

Mental health problems

Stress

Musculoskiletal

Digestive

 

v    Second

Fatigue increases therisks of accidents.

 

Both fatigue and accidents increase if you workmore than 48 hours a week.

 

v    Third

For every happypartnership built on the partner never being at home, many more break up.

 

Professor Cary Cooper, UMIST University, found consistentdirect links between long hours worked to increase difficulties in personal andfamily relationships.

 

v    Four

 

Personal life and interests are stunted

 

For employers and the economy asa whole productively declines for every hour worked beyond about 8 a day and 35a week. A recent DTI survey oncompliance with the 48 hour maximum in the Working Time Directive found 3 outof 10 enterprises had to change working practices to cut the hours ofindividual workers and many found operational efficiency increased.

 

For Women long hours are one of the highest barriers to doing manyincluding senior jobs.

 

WHO WORKS LONG HOURS?

 

Of 4 million who work more than 48 hours aweek,

 

       3.2 million are men, of all male workers,

        million are women, 1 in 20 of all female workers.

       1 million men (1 in 10) and million women work morethan 55 hours a week regularly.

       Managers and senior staff are most likely to workmore than 48 hours a week, followed by professional occupations (especiallyteachers), transport and manufacturing workers.

 

WHY DO IT?

 

For Many

       to earn overtime pay in skilled trades, factorywork and transport.

 

For Others

       excess work loads unpaid overtime particularlyin managerial and professional jobs, many in the public sector.

 

Senior Civil Servants contracts, for example,include unlimited unpaid hours of work. Over 1/3 of these FDA members currently work 48 hours or more perweek.

 

Millions of British workers have become lockedinto long hours, either:

 

       TO KEEP UP THEIR PAY OR

       IT HAS BECOME A WORKPLACE NORM. the latter is more common among managers andprofessionals. It is Usuallyunpaid. Even where the FDA hasnegotiated agreements to pay overtime, most of our members do not claimit. Alarmingly, neither do manymore junior civil servants, where overtime pay has been an entitlement foryears.

 

HOW DO WE CHANGE IT?

 

This motion gives many direction and practical steps

 

I highlight:

1.                Convince members that shorter hours are betterand possible, without loss of earnings.4 or of 10 accountancy staff working excessive hours told Cary Coopertheir hours were unacceptable. There isfertile ground.

2.                Renegotiate agreements to reduce reliance on excesshours. The FDA has overtime paymentnear the top of our pay agenda because for us the issue is to break memberscompliance with managements use of voluntary unpaid work.

 

We couple this withnegotiating time-off in lieu and reviews of staffing levels and workloads.

 

For other unions theissue is breaking long hours at low hourly rates.

 

Unions use can andmust make a difference. Many ofthe areas where long hours are worked civil service, teaching, transport, toname a few are highly unionised.

 

3.                Legislation.

 

DIT/TUC research showsWTD has mad Campaign to strengthen the Working Time Directive. get rid of the opt out of the maximum 48hours average worked over 17 weeks. Theopportunity is now. Only Britainuses the opt out. The European Union islooking to close this opt-out next year.

 

Transport Unions havealready negotiated to bring their members under the Working Time Directive.

 

4.                Campaigning for a shorter working week.

 

The composite cites 35hours possibly in printing and engineering.This could be more or less in other sectors. This is not especially relevant in civil service where formal workingweek is near that already. Our bigissue is to assist people to reduce their hours to this.

 

Colleagues, sanity in working life is not too muchto expect. Support the motion.