Employers are rigid on fixed working hours

Fewer than a quarter of employees have any provision for flexible working in their employment contracts, a new TUC report says.

Challenging times reveals that more than one in ten employees - 2.3 million people - would like to work fewer hours, even if it meant taking home less money.

But although 150,000 more people now work flexibly since the parents of young children were given the right to request flexible working arrangements in April 2003, over half a million workers have had their requests for shorter hours turned down.

Union members are nearly twice as likely to be working flexibly (34.5%) as their non-unionised counterparts (19.1%).

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said employers should not see flexible working as a burden, "but as a positive move that makes sound business sense".

The report is available at www.tuc.org.uk/extras/CTreport.doc