Say 'enough' to unpaid overtime, urges expert
Sun 15th Jan 2012
By Paul Donovan
A Catholic expert in workplace relations has said that workers should say enough, after a new report showed Britons contributed billions of punds in unpaid overtime to employers in 2011.
Kevin Flanagan, the director of the Centre for Church and Industry in Salford, was responding to a report from the Labour Force Survey. It found that workers contributed £29bn via unpaid overtime to employers last year.
The study found that 5.3 million workers put in a average of 7.2 hours of unpaid overtime a week last year, worth around £5300 a year per person.
The TUC has pointed out that the two billion hours of unpaid overtime worked last year would be enough to create more than a million extra full time jobs.
Mr Flanagan said employers were continually trying to eat into the free time of workers to effectively exploit their labour.
"There is increasing pressure on on people to take on unrealistic workloads" said Mr. Flanagan, who added he believed an atmosphere of insecurity at work and rising unemployment made workers less likely to complain when unscrupulous employers make demands for them to work for nothing.
"There is a climate of fear, so accepting unreasonable work demands is an expectation of many employers. When these practices are impacting on work-life balance and impinging on the life of individuals, it is time to stand up and say enough. It is a question of injustice that has to be confronted."
The TUC has said that if workers who regularly put in unpaid overtime worked all thier hours from the start of the year, the first day they would get paid would be Friday, February 24th.
It has named February 24th as 'Work Your Proper Hours Day' (WYPHD) to mark the unsung- and unpaid- extra hours which millions of workers put in.
TUC deputy general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "While many of the extra unpaid hours worked could easily be reduced by changing work practises and ending the UK's culture of pointless presenteeis, a small number of employers are exploiting staff by regulary forcing them to do excessive amounts of extra work for no extra pay. This attitude is not only bad for workers' health, it is bad for the economy too as it reduces productivity and hold back job creation. no-one wants to see us become a nation of clock watchers but a more sensible and grown up attitude to wroking time could cut out needless unpaid hours and help more people into work"
Article taken from 'The Universe' Saturday 15 January 2012