Decent work should be at heart of the UK’s recovery from coronavirus, says TUC

New report calls for government to use Employment Bill to end zero-hours contracts and introduce penalties for employers who mislead people about their employment status

Decent work should be at heart of the UK's recovery from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to a report from the TUC.

In the new report, Insecure work - Why decent work needs to be at the heart of the UK’s recovery from coronavirus, the TUC sets out the findings of research showing that 3.6 million people, or one worker in nine, were in insecure work ahead of the coronavirus outbreak - leaving them exposed to massive drops in income or unsafe working conditions when the pandemic hit - and argues that insecure work is bad for the economy, with clear evidence that decent work leads to better economic outcomes.

The TUC also argues that improving job quality is not something that can wait until the economy recovers from the pandemic and, as a result, urges the government to use the Employment Bill that was introduced in the 2019 Queen's Speech to deliver -

• the effective abolition of zero hours contracts through a right to request a regular hours contract, decent notice of shifts and compensation for cancelled shifts;
• penalties for employers who mislead people about their employment status and protections for the genuinely self-employed;
• workers to have the right to challenge their parent employer over minimum wage, sick pay and holiday pay abuses; and
• genuine two-way flexibility by giving workers a default right to work flexibly from the first day in the job, and all jobs to be advertised as flexible.

For more information, see With 3.6 million in insecure work, we have an opportunity for change from tuc.org.uk