For any problem in the world of work, you can usually come up with a policy solution. Zero-hour contracts create anxiety? Ban them. Are people burning out? Let’s create a “right to disconnect”. The British public should expect many such proposals heading into the next elections, given that major political parties are unwilling to commit to large public spending. Every time I hear it, I want to interrupt. Can we start by enforcing the laws we already have?
A study of UK labor market enforcement by the Resolution Foundation think tank reveals the scale of the problem. 900,000 workers say they are not receiving holiday pay even though they are entitled from day one. 1.8 million people say they have not received payslips. Also, about 600,000 people are not enrolled in pension schemes by their employers when they should be. Meanwhile, the employment tribunal system is plagued by delays and backlogs.With admirable honesty, head of the government’s Labor Market Enforcement Office recently said It is said that employees rarely approach her office directly.
What’s going wrong? Unlike other countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Australia, where there is one main body exercising most employment rights, in the UK the roles are spread across six different bodies controlled by six different government departments. It has been. This means employees don’t know where to go when they have a problem, and the various regulators aren’t sharing enough information. Also, resources are scarce. UK Labor Market Investigators scored just 0.29 per 10,000 workers, less than a third of the International Labor Organization’s minimum standard of 1 He per 10,000 workers. It ranks 27th out of 33 comparable OECD countries on this basis.
The approach that regulators tend to take has also been shaped by successive UK governments’ desire not to hurt employers and economic growth with too much ‘red tape’. Preamble to the UK Regulators Code 2014 situation Regulators are expected to “design service and enforcement policies in a way that best suits the needs of businesses and other regulated entities.”
I have something to say about this. Most employers want to follow the rules, and regulators can help them do that. I’m solving a problem, but I think the director says “I’m not happy with that. How are you going to fix it? What if I do this?”
But it’s not anti-business to admit that some employers willfully break the law. In fact, sane companies desperately want governments to crack down on unscrupulous competitors. Neil Carberry, chief executive of his Recruitment & Employment Confederation, a trade group for staffing agencies, said his members were suffering from squeezed margins and lost business because of rule-breaking competitors. says there is.
“What happens is that these companies set a reference rate for things that drive the market price,” he told me. “We see this in clients who demand agency worker fees that they clearly cannot provide if they are fully compliant.” Of particular concern is the Umbrella Company, a form of employment brokerage. lack of regulation for
This is not just a problem for large companies.Small Business Federation also said The current system “needs reform” to “support workers and ensure a level playing field for employers.”
Nor is it clear that a soft-soft approach to enforcing rules is good for economic growth. His two major policy interventions over the past decade have been articulated by governments as attempts to force employers of low-wage workers to invest in technology to boost the country’s disastrous productivity. Migration after Brexit. Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson argued the latter would keep employers away from a “broken model” of low wages, slow growth, inadequate skills and low productivity.
But there’s no point in trying to put the economy in a pressure cooker when it leaves a lot of holes in the bottom where all the steam can escape. Has it been superseded by? There is only one machine near where I live. Every time I try to use it, I get signs of failure.
