Website For Polish Workers Launches

The TUC today (Thursday) launches a new Polish website to support the increasing number of Polish workers in the UK. The website http://www.pracawbrytanii.org - run by the TUC in partnership with Citizens Advice and Solidarnosc - explains the rights workers can expect at work, from the minimum wage and working time to holiday entitlement and sick pay; information about social issues such as housing and health; and guidance about what living and working in the UK is really like.

Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, thousands of Polish workers have come to the UK to make their living, and 222,760 Poles registered for National Insurance numbers in 2006-7. Sadly many of these workers have fallen prey to unscrupulous employers and have been forced to work long hours for little pay, in unsafe workplaces with very few employment rights.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “Polish workers are making a substantial contribution to Britain’s economy, and sectors like agriculture and construction would struggle without their valuable contribution.

‘However, some rogue employers are taking advantage of this new, vulnerable workforce, and exploiting their lack of understanding of British working culture and problems with language.

‘It is clear Polish workers need help both to understand and also secure their rights. By using this new website and working with unions, advice agencies and other similar organisations, migrant workers can get all the support and protection from crooked employers they are entitled to.”

The website is supported by a guide ‘Living and working in the UK: Your rights’, written jointly by the TUC and the Citizens Advice service. The guide gives useful advice and tips for new arrivals on living in the UK, and focuses on issues that might cause problems at work. The guide is available in English, and copies in Polish will be available shortly.

There are sections on: housing, council tax, TV licences, energy suppliers, as well as advice on how to access healthcare, open a bank account and find a suitable school. The work part of the guide covers national insurance and tax, the minimum wage, holidays, agency workers, and health and safety. The final pages contain a useful list of contacts that should prove invaluable to new arrivals.

Collective Consultation Must Cover Reason For Redundancy Dismissals

A new ruling over collective redundancy consultation has established that as well as consulting about the dismissals, an employer now has to consult about the reasons behind the dismissals.

Although under section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, an employer always had to disclose the reasons for proposed redundancies, previously the case law had restricted consultation to the redundancy process itself rather than the reasons why they may be necessary.

The ruling was made by Justice Elias in a case at the Employment Appeals Tribunal. The employer had argued that it did not need to consult over the actual reasons why it was closing the Ellington Colliery. However, the judge said, “..the obligation to consult over avoiding the proposed redundancies inevitably involves engaging with the reasons for the dismissals, and that in turn requires consultation over the reasons for the closure.” UK Coal Mining Limited v BACM and NUM.

Doctor’s Certificate Was Evidence of Sickness

Employers who ignore medical evidence have received a warning following a recent case at the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT).

In Taylor v Merseyrail Electrics 2002 Ltd UKEAT 0162/07, the employer had a discretionary clause in its sick pay scheme allowing for sick pay to be withheld if there were doubts whether an illness was genuine.

Although Ms. Taylor had a GP’s note certifying her absence as being due to stress, the employer believed otherwise and withheld her sick pay.

However, the EAT upheld Ms. Taylor’s claim of an unlawful deduction from wages because the employer ignored the medical certificate, and had not undertaken any medical investigation of its own that might have put in doubt the opinion of the GP. His Honour Judge Peter Clark said, “It was not open, once that medical certificate had come in, for the Respondent to maintain any doubt as to the reason for absence in the absence of any contradictory medical evidence.”

TUC Backing Agency Workers Bill

The TUC is calling on the Government today (Friday) to support Paul Farrelly’s Private Members’ Bill to give agency workers legal equal treatment rights at work, and save one million temporary workers from discrimination in the workplace and ill-treatment by rogue employment agencies.

Part-time and fixed-term contract workers enjoy the same employment rights as permanent staff, but currently employers are free to discriminate against agency workers in terms of pay and basic working conditions. They can hire agency workers on much lower hourly rates than they would pay directly employed workers, and on far worse terms and conditions to do exactly the same job as directly employed staff.

Agency staff miss out on a whole range of benefits such as overtime rates, commission, sickness and maternity benefits and this insecurity has huge implications for their current and future financial position - including the inability to obtain a mortgage. Nearly half of temporary workers (43 per cent, LFS) are aged 21-30, leaving a whole generation of the workforce unable to get on the property ladder or take part in pension schemes.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “There is nothing wrong with legitimate recruitment agencies providing short-term work for those with short-term availability. But rogue agencies and dodgy practices are now tarnishing the whole sector.

‘In particular too many employers are now using agencies to replace secure jobs and reasonable terms and conditions with badly paid insecure agency staff. Far from providing a bridge to permanent work, this runs the risk of creating an underclass of workers who cannot get permanent work.

‘TUC research shows that compared to permanent employees, agency workers have very few rights and this lays them open to exploitation at the hands of rogue employers.

‘This Government has done much for people at work, but new laws are needed urgently to protect agency workers from ill-treatment. Paul Farrelly’s Private Members’ Bill is an important opportunity to introduce decent minimum standards for all. We urge the Government to support the Bill’s passage through Parliament.”

FE Gift Voucher Scheme Launched

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) will today launch a new and unique scheme that enables people to buy Gift Vouchers towards the cost of Further Education (FE) courses for the first time.

The pilot project, launching today in nine colleges across England, will promote FE courses as ‘the Perfect Gift’ for people to give to friends and family, to help loved ones learn brand new skills. The trial comes as new government research reveals that over half (56%) of people would like to receive a Gift Voucher for a training course as a present.

The ICM research, commissioned by DIUS, also showed that receiving a Voucher for a course was the third most popular gift people would like to receive (20%) after clothes (31%) and books (25%), but ahead of music (15%) and toiletries (7%) in a list of five possible gifts.

Launching the pilot today at the College of North East London (CoNEL), David Lammy, Minister for Skills, said: “The Perfect Gift pilot is a superb example of the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that runs through the FE sector. Enabling people to purchase Vouchers for courses is a simple but effective way to make learning, and the benefits of learning, even more accessible to everyone.”

The Gift Vouchers can be used to enrol on a variety of courses available at participating colleges and are redeemable during the 2007-2008 academic year. Each Gift Voucher has a value of £50 and may cover the full course cost or a contribution towards it.

In addition to CoNEL, the other colleges involved in the pilot are Chichester College, NewCollege Nottingham, Blackpool & Fylde College, Gateshead College, York College, West Hertfordshire College, Filton College (Bristol) and Warwickshire College.

Massive Cost Of Child Poverty

Child poverty is costing £40 billion a year through increased crime, public spending and lost economic productivity, a TUC conference will be told today (Wednesday 17 October). Without urgent action the Government will miss its pledge to halve the 3.8 million children currently living in poverty by 2010.

Measures in the Comprehensive Spending Review will, according to the Government’s own figures, lift only an extra 100,000 children above the poverty threshold. They fall far short of the extra £4 billion that experts agree is needed to halve child poverty by 2010, the conference, coinciding with World Poverty Day will hear.

At £40 billion, the cost of inaction on child poverty is ten times the cost of reducing it. The TUC believe the £4 billion needed can easily be paid for by fairer taxation of the super-rich. Introducing a proper residence test for non-doms would raise more than £4 billion.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “As the world focuses on the plight of children around the globe, it’s shocking that 3.8 million children in the UK are living in poverty. Child poverty costs £40 billion a year, or £2,500 for every family in the UK. It’s a problem none of us can afford to ignore.

‘But the Government’s commitment to halve child poverty by 2010 must now be in doubt, following the failure to step up spending and a deeply unambitious tax take from the super-rich.

‘Hints that the Government is thinking of adopting tax breaks for marriage is even more worrying. Child poverty can only be eradicated by focusing on the needs of the children, not on the marital status of the parents. A tax break for married parents is the same as a tax punishment for the children of lone and unmarried parents.

‘An extra investment of £4 billion is needed to halve child poverty by 2010. But the cost of inaction is ten times greater. The Government is running out of time to meet its child poverty pledge. Today, as members of the Campaign to end child poverty, we urge the Government to take decisive action.”

Today’s TUC Poverty Conference will kick off a ‘Month of Action’ organised by the Campaign to End Poverty - a coalition of more than 90 organisations committed to eradicating child poverty in the UK. Speakers at the conference will examine the impact of benefits, housing and social services on child poverty. The keynote speaker will be the Rt Hon Peter Hain MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

UCU Rejects Pay Offer

UCU members in England are to be balloted over taking industrial action after a special pay conference rejected this year’s pay offer from the Association of Colleges.

Delegates to the pay conference, held on 6 October and attended by UCU branch representatives from colleges across the country, said that the pay offer worth 2.55% over the year was ‘insulting’, and with the increase in retail prices standing at 4.1% for August, it amounts to a pay cut.

The conference also considered a pre-conference branch consultation responded to by over 68% of branches covered by the pay offer. Of these 190 branches, 92 indicated that they wished to accept the offer; 82 indicated rejection of the offer; 2 branches had tied votes and 11 indicated abstention.

UCU branches are now preparing for a national ballot of FE members on taking industrial action.

European Case Could Extend DDA coverage

A case being heard this week in Europe could have major implications for workers who are responsible for people with disabilities. Under existing discrimination law, a person with disabilities is protected, but there are no rights afforded to anyone who is associated with a disabled person. This could now change.

The case has been lodged by Sharon Colemen whose child has congenital respiratory problems. She says she was not afforded the same flexibility by her employer as mothers of non-disabled children when their children were ill. The European Court of Justice is being asked to rule on whether the EU directive includes a ban on discriminating against someone because of his or her association with a disabled person.

If Sharon wins then it could mean changes to UK law. This will be good news for ACM members faced with neither flexibility or sympathy from college bosses when needing time-off to help family members with a disability.

TUC Reaction To Chancellor’s Statement

Reacting to yesterday’s statement from the Chancellor, TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, said:

“There is much to welcome, especially new investment in education, health, transport, science and the environment. The economy continues to do well, and the public finances are in good shape.

‘But some parts of the public sector have received a very tight settlement. The Government must understand that it cannot expect public servants to fund this through further cuts in their real pay after this year’s staged awards.

‘We also warmly welcome the Chancellor’s recognition of the tax loopholes enjoyed by the super-rich through both private equity and non-dom status - an issue that unions have put firmly on the agenda.

‘But the Chancellor has only started the process of closing the loopholes today. It would have been far better to introduce a proper residence test than make the non-dom regime even more complex. We estimate this would quickly start to raise an extra £4 billion a year.

‘This would have provided more funds to tackle child poverty. Of course we welcome the rise in tax credits and other measures that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty, but more progress is needed if the Government is to meet its own target.

‘While it is right to review inheritance tax thresholds each year, we are not convinced the Chancellor has been right to be so generous. Only one in twenty estates pay inheritance tax - and many do not realise that tax is only paid on the extra over the threshold, so people with property just over the limit only pay a very small amount. This will do nothing to make Britain more equal, and the money it will cost would have been better spent on better public services and attacking poverty.”

Call For More Public Sector Apprenticeships

Skills Minister David Lammy has called on major public sector employers to offer more Apprenticeships to young people and adults, and break down barriers preventing their take up. The move is part of the Government’s drive to see 400,000 Apprenticeships in England by 2020.

Last month the Prime Minister told the TUC that the Public Sector should provide many more placements.

Responding to a House of Lords report on apprenticeships David Lammy said: “I am now bringing together public sector employers at a high level summit to help show the way and determine how all employers and small to medium size employers can offer more apprenticeships.

“We want to make apprenticeships more easily accessible to everyone who wants one. A web-based clearing service we have been trialling will help potential apprentices search nationally much more easily by job category and area and match them better to suitable employers. It will also help employers to recruit their apprentices.

“Working in partnership with employers, learners and training providers, we will introduce an entitlement to an apprenticeship for every suitably qualified young person that wants one by 2013. We are determined to make high quality Government funded Apprenticeships available and well regarded in all parts of the country.”

There are currently in excess of 250, 000 apprentices in England. The House of Lords report can be found at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldeconaf.htm

TUC: End Tax Loopholes For Super Rich

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has today (Tuesday) called on the Chancellor Alistair Darling to use the Pre-Budget Report and the Comprehensive Spending Review to close tax loop-holes for the super-rich and use the proceeds to make further progress towards the Government’s target of ending child poverty.

Brendan Barber said: “The Chancellor should use his statement today to signal a crackdown on the abuse of tax loop-holes by the super-rich. No one is calling for a return to penal marginal rates of tax, but it is only right that the super-rich pay a fair share of their income.

‘Alistair Darling should look at both the tax treatment of private equity and the taxation of non-domiciles. Introducing a tougher test for non-doms could easily raise the £4 billion that would provide what most experts say is needed to make the required progress on Labour’s child poverty pledge.

‘What he should not do is take up Conservative suggestions. Even if their poll tax for non-doms is legal, it fails to tax fairly the real super-rich, and then uses the proceeds to help not the poor or even the middle classes but the top one in twenty who actually pay inheritance tax. It’s redistribution from the super-rich to the merely extremely well off.”

MPs Say Colleges Waste Money

The Commons Public Accounts Committee has criticised the way FE colleges buy supplies saying they pay over the odds for items like fuel and stationery. The news is reported today on Guardian Unlimited.

The article quotes Edward Leigh, the committee’s chairman, as saying: “Many further education colleges have been slow to modernise their processes for buying fuel, catering, stationery and other supplies. This is a serious point because money saved on procurement - the target for the whole sector is an annual £75m but that might easily be improved upon - could be redirected towards teaching and other frontline services.”