So making breakfast today and listening to the radio for a brief period and I felt I had been teleported into an employee relations workshop!
So first up we have a discussion on employment status, and the government response to the Taylor Review, baited break loud fanfare....
Now as someone who I think has a fair grasp of employment status and its complexity even I was left confused as to what was actually being proposed.
From what I could gather from the radio interview it seemed to boil down to 'the right to request' moving to employment status, a name and shame list of those not complying with holidays and SSP for workers (who are already entitled to this), name ad shame for those who fail to pay ET awards and time off for medical appts for self-employed/contractors. That was my conclusion from listening to the radio so I needed to dig deeper. This did lead me to go straight to the horse’s mouth so to speak and below is the government response: So looks like this is one to add to the reading list and no doubt we will be discussing as this moves through its consultation.
Next up was Tesco and news of a potential equal value claim (in addition to the similar actions against Asda and Sainsbury’s) which could potentially be the biggest in UK employment history. With 250k workers estimates of a claim in the region of 4 billon were discussed. This relates to a claim being made by shop floor workers (predominantly female) who are comparing their roles as equal value to those of predominantly male colleagues within the distribution centres So one employee (typically male) takes it off the shelf in the distribution centre and another (typically female) puts it onto the shelf ion the store and also has to deal with customers.
It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. I can't help thinking that a warehouse distribution centre would have its own specific challenges e.g. FLT /machinery operation, health and safety, scheduling and the work environment itself (the distribution centres I have been in were very very cold!), that said I have not worked in a retail or warehouse environment so am not best placed to comment.
You can read about the background to the case here.
What are your views on the above would be great to hear from someone who has more detailed knowledge of the context.
All the best
Sarah
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