Vulnerable workers’ rights need to be enforced

A new “Fair Employment Commission”, which could co-ordinate enforcement agencies’ work, is needed to help halt the exploitative treatment meted out to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable workers.

This is just one proposal from the TUC’s Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE) report, Hard work, hidden lives, published last month.

The report documents the plight of two million workers — over 60% of them women — in low-paid, insecure work. It finds that they lack access to employment rights advice as well as the ability to have their rights enforced —according to the report the UK has less employment protection than any other advanced economy bar the USA.

One of the report’s commissioners Belinda Earl, chief executive of the Jaeger luxury clothing chain, said that she met with migrant domestic workers who were being underpaid and exploited — and who faced physical and sexual violence from their employers. She described such practices as unacceptable and called for more action to prevent “extreme violations of employment law”.

In addition to a Fair Employment Commission, the report wants to see a major awareness programme on employment rights; better funding for employment rights advice and enforcement agencies such as the Health and Safety Executive; and changes to the immigration law to reduce the vulnerable status of migrant workers.