Vulnerable Workers
Well my first week has been and gone and it feels about time for the first blog entry!
Seeing as I’ll be working on the Vulnerable Workers Project I thought I’d explain a little about what we mean by vulnerable workers and what the trade union movement has been doing about the problem so far.
The TUC’s Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE) defines Vulnerable Work as:
“Precarious work that places people at risk of continuing poverty and injustice resulting from an imbalance of power in the employer-worker relationship.”
If you’ve ever had a minimum or low waged job, particularly through an agency, as a temp or on a zero hour’s contract, working from home or working cash in hand then it’s very likely that you will have been a vulnerable worker. And you’d be in good company: One in five workers are!
Unsurprisingly enough, the commission found that vulnerable workers were more likely to be women, from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, disabled or migrant workers. This reflects the structural inequalities in society.
More information, including a very informative and readable short report can be found here: http://vulnerableworkers.org.uk/ What particularly struck me about the report were varied and sensitive personal stories which show very starkly the effect that vulnerable working can have on an individual’s well being, mental health and family life.
In the worst case scenario, of course, vulnerable working can cost people their lives; a reality starkly demonstrated by the tragic death of 23 Chinese Cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay in 2004: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Morecambe_Bay_cockling_disaster
By now, the sharper among you will have noted that an “imbalance of power in the employer-worker relationship” is not a foregone conclusion in any line of work and that working relationships can be “rebalanced” in favour of the worker if enough people join, and are active in, a trade union. It will not surprise you, then, that the majority of “vulnerable” work is un-unionised.
CoVE put this down to (among other factors), a failure of trade unions to organise. A particular example is that in workplaces which contract out some aspects of their business, workers who are not directly employed may not be approached to join a union.
There are plenty of good examples of trade unions meeting these challenges. The CoVe short report cites, for example, Unison’s Overseas Nurses Network, the GMB’s project workers who combine organising with ESOL (English as a Second Language) provision and Unite’s involvement with the Justice for Cleaners campaign. This involved organising and negotiation but also demonstrations, media work and a partnership with that mighty powerhouse of community organisation: London Citizens. http://www.londoncitizens.org.uk
I’d also recommend the piece on the GMB’s Polish Workers Branch in Southampton which can be found here: http://www.nosweat.org.uk/node/124 . What I particularly liked about this piece is that it provides a no nonsense account of each step taken towards the eventual formation of the branch, and shows the commitment and work needed to achieve eventual success.
What all these examples have in common is that an innovative and creative approach has been taken, focusing on the difficulties faced by workers and finding practical ways in which the unions can bring collective action to bear on them.
At this point you may well be asking yourself what your humble blogger is proposing to do towards all this great work:
I’ve been put to work on a brand spanking new pilot project funded by the Union Modernisation Fund and run by the South East Region Trades Union Congress (SERTUC). You can check us out here: http://www.tuc.org.uk/tuc/regions_info_southeast.cfm. A complete plan is in the offing but the intention of the project is improve support for vulnerable workers in London region by working with trade unions branches, community groups and existing networks.
The details will no doubt become clear in time and I’ll fill you in with further info as I have it! In the meantime I find myself busy enough just finding my way around the idiosyncratic Congress House, (my exciting new workplace), meeting people, remembering and failing to remember names and making myself useful (I hope!) around the SERTUC office.
I’m very much looking forward to posting again so stick around for an enlightening and entertaining account of my adventures and misadventures over the coming year!
Ellenor Hutson
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