Low-paid workers ‘penalised’ over flexible working

TUC says young parents are exploited by
employers and do not know their rights

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The TUC spoke to 1,000 parents aged 20 to 35 and
found that 42 per cent felt penalised if they asked for flexible
hours. Some even feared they might lose their jobs. Those who did
ask for flexible hours said they were given fewer hours or worse
shifts. 

More than half of those surveyed did not know their own
employment rights, the trade union body said, while 47 per cent
said they were struggling to juggle work with childcare.

The TUC says the results of the survey are “shocking”, while the
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy says
businesses must have a legitimate reason to turn down a flexible
working request from the 20 million people in the UK who are
eligible to make one.

Professor Nicole Busby of Strathclyde University told The Guardian that legal rights are often not
relevant for the lowest-paid workers. “There is a right to request
flexible work but this is of no practical use to those on
zero-hours contracts who often don’t even know their working hours
in advance,” she said. 

“Even where it does apply, it is merely a ‘right’ to ask for a
particular arrangement and your employer can refuse on a range of
different business grounds,” she added.

Hospital visits

The study also found that many young parents were disciplined
for taking time off for childcare. One young mother said: “My baby
stopped breathing and I had to go to hospital – I got threatened
with a disciplinary.”

Another said she took her son to A&E because he was having
breathing difficulties, only to get a call from her manager asking
when she would be back at work. She said: “Some managers have no
sympathy.”

Radical overhaul

Ben Wilson, executive director of the Equality and Human Rights
Commission, told the BBC that flexible working should become the
norm. 

He said: “We have been calling for all jobs to be advertised as
available for flexible working in order to remove the barriers
people, particularly parents, face to increased pay and fulfilling
careers.”

The TUC’s General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Too many
workplaces expect mums and dads to forget all about their kids as
soon as they walk through the door…It’s a nightmare to plan
childcare when your boss changes your shifts at the drop of a hat,
and you never work the same weekly hours twice.”