Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing this important debate.

As we have heard, the Taylor review of working practices was published in 2017 but the Government have not implemented its many valuable recommendations. I will focus on the recommendation that workers on zero-hours contracts who have been in post for 12 months or more should have the right to request a contract that better reflects the hours they work. Despite the Government’s commitment in the December 2019 Queen’s Speech to use the then forthcoming employment Bill to introduce a right to request a more stable contract, they have taken no action to protect people on zero-hours contracts.

The most recent data from the Office for National Statistics confirms that 1 million UK workers are on zero-hours contracts, which is higher than pre-pandemic levels. Workers on zero-hours contracts are regularly underemployed, often have to work more than one job and are likely to be constantly searching for new work. That is bad for people’s financial security and general wellbeing, as too many are forced to live from pay cheque to pay cheque.

It is no coincidence that the rise in employers exploiting the status of workers has occurred alongside the assault on trade unions. Forty years ago, eight out of 10 workers enjoyed terms and conditions negotiated by a trade union. Today, fewer than one in four workers has that benefit.

According to a joint report from the Trades Union Congress and the equality organisation Race on the Agenda, women of colour are almost twice as likely to be on zero-hours contracts as white men, and almost one and a half times as likely to be on them as white women. Far from providing greater flexibility, zero-hours contracts are trapping women from African, African-Caribbean, Asian and other racialised groups in low pay and insecure work, leaving them struggling to pay bills and plan their lives. That is what institutional racism in the workplace looks like. Indeed, the only flexibility that zero-hours contracts provide is for the employer, who is granted total arbitrary control over their workers’ hours. That instability means that many people’s incomes are subject to the whims of managers, which makes it hard for workers to plan their lives.

Recent polling data showed that 40% of African, African-Caribbean, Asian and other racialised groups on insecure contracts said they face the threat of losing their shifts if they turn down work, compared with 25% of insecure white workers. The data also showed that racialised groups in insecure work have been allocated a shift at less than a day’s notice, and almost half have had shifts cancelled with less than a day’s notice.

That mistreatment is especially evident in sections of Leicester’s garment industry, in which wage exploitation has been endemic for more than a decade. One of the most frequently recurring issues in my city’s garment industry is the routine under-reporting of hours by the unscrupulous bosses of sweatshops. Some companies also defraud their workers of holiday leave through a bogus probationary period that prevents them from being paid any leave for a year or longer. Many appalling garment industry contracts prohibit workers from unionising; require eight weeks’ notice while giving workers only two days’ notice for termination of employment; offer insulting overtime pay of 10p, poor sick pay and no recourse against inadequate and dangerous working conditions; and mandate that workers opt out of the Working Time Regulations 1998, which limit weeks to 40 hours.

Too many workers in Leicester’s garment industry, regardless of their length of service, are on zero-hours contracts, and get paid only when they work, even if the reason they are not able to work is outside their control. For instance, if the factory is not able to open because of an electric fault, the worker is often told at short notice that they are not needed that day and thus does not get paid. No matter how zero-hours contracts are dressed up, they are simply a return to Victorian employment practices, where unneeded workers would trudge home from the factory gates empty-handed after not even being selected for a shift.

The Government must implement the recommendations of the Taylor review and go further by banning the use of zero-hours contracts, as many countries in Europe already do. They must crack down on toxic casualisation through a single legal status of “worker” for everyone who works, except of course for those who are genuinely self-employed. Zero-hours contracts must be eradicated, and hours should be regulated so that each worker gets guaranteed pay for a working week.

Beyond that, the full recommendations of the Taylor review must be implemented. Trade union rights must be reinstated and extended. We must ensure that every job is a good job, providing security, dignity and a fair wage.