Workers need to fight back. There’s a post-covid world that must be won BY ROZANNE FOYER
Call for Scottish Government to act as fears grow for thousands of workers
The coronavirus pandemic has thrown the sorry state of our labour market into sharp relief.
For many workers, life became even more precarious. For workers on zero hours, temporary contracts or employed by agencies, navigating their employment has been fraught with issues and stress. When you factor in the fact that many of these jobs are subcontracted by the public sector, the current situation becomes all the more galling.
There are 110,000 temporary workers in Scotland. Meanwhile, the number of people in Scotland on zero-hour contracts has risen by 19% in the last year to now stand at 82,000. Some of the biggest increases are found in health and social work. While credible data on agency workers is hard to come by, we estimate that there may be around 70,000-120,000 in Scotland. Many of these agency workers are subcontracted by the public sector, including within the NHS and arms-length local authority organisations such as the Scottish Exhibition Centre.
What we have seen during the coronavirus pandemic is a complete lack of information, responsibility and accountability to workers. Many have been passed from pillar to post, ultimately being cruelly tossed aside and left to fend for themselves.
For employees who have been furloughed, the anxiety of whether they’ll still have a job for Christmas is beginning to kick in. The Job Retention Scheme is beginning to wind down, with the support given by the UK Government reduced, and the scheme due to end in October.
The UK Government
Rozanne Foyer must continue the scheme in some form past October, due to the many industries that are still not able to get back on their feet. Sectors such as hospitality and retail will need continued support.
The Scottish Government is committed to being a world leader in fair work by 2025. Yet many public services and local authorities are addicted to outsourcing work to recruitment agencies whose only concern is squeezing some profit from supplying workers on demand. As Scotland enters another recession and youth unemployment soars, public firms and publicly funded bodies should not be feeding this.
As general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, I want to see the Scottish Government face up to the scale of this problem. Any publicly-funded job in Scotland must have conditionality attached to the contract so that people have a decent contract, access to trade unions and an effective worker voice.
One of the ironies of agency work is that it often leaves workers with virtually no agency to make decisions about their work or to understand the way that decisions are made. And often agency workers are denied the ability to build collective agency of their own.
But with the support of the Better Than Zero Campaign and unions, workers are fighting back by keeping in contact with fellow employees through Whatsapp or other messaging platforms; demanding to see risk assessments; examining company’s profits; making collective demands; exerting pressure through public criticism; and taking collective action.
As the furlough scheme is wound down and the economy opens up, these simple steps will be crucial in delivering fairer work in workplaces the length and breadth of Scotland.