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Workplace Report February 2024
PAY AND PRICES BARGAINING Government doubles down on role of pay review bodies Two employers backtrack on Real Living Wage Workers stage mass strike across Northern Ireland EQUALITY Pay inequality is 'obscene' Four-fifths of women lack menopause support LEARNING AND TRAINING Adult learning risks missing 9 million in need RECRUITMENT AND ORGANISATION Recruitment push targets transport apprentices EUROPE Deal offers more pay and some progress on hours LAW AT WORK Employment law — the latest cases HEALTH AND SAFETY School unions welcome inspection pause Nurses' union demands Covid variant advice update Union's 'deep concern' over Sellafield safety Is sectoral bargaining back 15-17 on the agenda ? The Labour Party may be in government later this year and is calling for more sectoral collective bargaining. Will it find fertile ground for its New Deal? Europe : real pay edges 18-19 ahead as inflation falls Pay increases were relatively high across the EU in 2023, although, as in 2022, they were achieved against a background of high inflation – but, with inflation falling, most countries were able to record real-term pay growth
Health & safety - HSE Monitor
One resignation 'not enough' (131 words)
The TSSA transport union has called on the Network Rail infrastructure company to invest properly in maintenance after the ORR launched an ...
Open access
Pay and prices
Wage growth is above inflation (132 words)
The median pay rise achieved across all grades in the three months to December was 5.5% according to LRD Payline. This a drop from the 8% peak seen ... Open access
Health & safety - HSE Monitor
Union's 'deep concern' over Sellafield safety (335 words)
GMB general union national secretary Andy Prendergast has written to energy secretary Claire Courtinho following an ONR nuclear safety regulator ...
Subscribers only
Pay and prices
Full-time weekly average earnings (33 words)
... Open access
Health & safety - HSE Monitor
Convictions and £1 million+ fines follow breaches (414 words)
Wolverhampton-based Timmins Waste Services has been convicted of corporate manslaughter, and fined £400,000, following an investigation into the ... Subscribers only
Pay and prices
XpertHR (21 words)
Median increases for three months to end of December 2023 ... Open access
Features
Is sectoral bargaining back on the agenda? (3,133 words)
Labour’s New Deal for Working People, championed by deputy leader Angela Rayner, promises to help reverse the decades-long decline in collective ... Subscribers only
Pay and prices
Labour Research Department’s Payline database (270 words)
Percentage increases on lowest basic rates (by agreements covered) ... Subscribers only
Features
Europe: real pay edges ahead as inflation falls (2,014 words)
Pay rose more rapidly than in recent years in almost all EU states in 2023, with nine states out of 26 (there are no figures for Luxembourg) ... Subscribers only
Pay and prices
Average weekly earnings (AWE) (204 words)
(r) revised, (p) provisional ... Open access
Prices (65 words)
... Open access
2024 Forecasts (35 words)
Source: HM Treasury, Forecasts for the UK economy, January 2023. Fourth quarter
... Open access
Bargaining news
Pursuing fair work: a pivotal year (817 words)
Fair work will be on the national agenda one way or another this year, as we move towards a general election. Labour’s New Deal calls for Fair Work ... Subscribers only
London bus strike (154 words)
Workers at the Battersea and Twickenham bus garages in South London are taking strike action after rejecting a poor pay offer. Around 40 staff, ... Open access
New wave of train strikes (132 words)
Train drivers who are members of ASLEF union have made ready to take a new wave of strike action in a long-running dispute over pay. A series of ... Open access
Government doubles down on role of pay review bodies (437 words)
Ministers have said that UK public sector workers should not expect their wages to rise next year at the pace seen in 2023, causing an angry backlash ... Subscribers only
Two employers backtrack on Real Living Wage (302 words)
The new year saw bad news for some lower paid workers. Two high profile employers, Capita and the BrewDog brewery and pub chain, stated their ... Subscribers only
Multi-stage deals dominate on Payline (447 words)
The latest deals on Payline are dominated by uplifts received as part of multi-stage agreements, which is to be expected as not many negotiations ... Subscribers only
Workers stage mass strike across Northern Ireland (286 words)
More than 170,000 workers in Northern Ireland’s civil service, education authority, health trusts and transport sectors took strike action in ... Subscribers only
Shipyard workers win big (165 words)
Thirty workers on the Clyde contracted to work on a new type 26 frigate for the Royal Navy called off a planned strike after a significant pay ... Open access
Steelworkers get 12% (135 words)
In the West Midlands steelworkers employed by ArcelorMittal won a new two-year pay deal which included a 12% increase and part consolidation of the ... Open access
Equality news
Diverse companies are more successful (134 words)
Companies with greater gender and ethnic diversity are more likely to succeed financially than those with a more homogeneous workforce, according to ... Open access
Young workers face low pay problems (130 words)
Low pay will remain an ongoing problem for young workers despite significant wage rises announced by the government in last year’s Autumn ... Open access
Pay inequality is 'obscene' (263 words)
The TUC has condemned as “obscene” the levels of pay inequality exposed in a new report by the High Pay Centre showing that FTSE 100 bosses ... Subscribers only
Women more likely to be underemployed (156 words)
Women workers are among those most likely to be underemployed, according to research from the Underemployment Project which found they tend to work ... Open access
Four-fifths of women lack menopause support (204 words)
Less than 20% of menopausal women have access to support at work, according to a new report by the Unite general union. ... Open access
Learning and training news
Adult learning risks missing 9 million in need (379 words)
The government must increase investment and target it more accurately to ensure the maximum number of adults have the “essential” literacy and ... Subscribers only
TUC to host Unionlearn conference this month (114 words)
The future of union learning will be the theme of this month’s annual conference of Unionlearn, the TUC’s learning and training wing. ... Open access
Recruitment and organisation news
Recruitment push targets transport apprentices (335 words)
A drive to recruit apprentices on the London transport network is the first phase of an apprentice organising campaign by the RMT transport union. ... Subscribers only
Asda deal (121 words)
Retail trade union Usdaw has reached a new collective bargaining agreement with supermarket giant Asda which will allow the union to recruit and ... Open access
European news
More above-inflation deals in Austria (136 words)
With inflation in Austria currently 5.6% (December), more agreements have settled well above this level in the last few weeks. The biggest is for ... Open access
No progress on Finnish framework (133 words)
Unions and employers in Finland met last month to discuss the government’s proposed changes to the bargaining framework, which would result in the ... Open access
Deal offers more pay and some progress on hours (479 words)
IG Metall, Germany’s largest union, has reached agreement on a new deal for 68,000 steel workers in north west Germany. It contains a combination ... Subscribers only
Three-year deal and hours cut agreed at Telefónica (323 words)
Telefónica, Spain’s largest telecommunications company, with 27,400 employees in the country in 2022, has reached as agreement with the unions ... Subscribers only
Employment law - Case reports
Guidance on fair redundancy (452 words)
Haycocks attended two consultation meetings, one on 30 June and the second on 8 July, before he was handed a letter of dismissal on 14 July. He was ... Subscribers only
Wider selection pool should have been considered (404 words)
Ms Tuchkova worked for Blackdown Hill Management Ltd (BHM) as a legal project manager. She went on maternity leave in March 2017. Shortly before her ... Subscribers only
Ryanair pilot was worker (554 words)
Mr Lutz was contracted as a pilot to Ryanair for five years by agency Storm Global Ltd through a service company called Dishford. Dishford could ... Subscribers only
Embassy not immune to claim for psychiatric injury (425 words)
Ms Alhayali worked at the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. She made ET claims including claims for unfair dismissal, discrimination, and holiday pay. ... Subscribers only
Contract cannot limit whistleblowing award (612 words)
SPI Spirits is a wines and spirits merchant and Mr Shefler its majority shareholder. Mr Zabelin was employed from 2017 as group chief investment ... Subscribers only
Tribunal failed to apply burden of proof (526 words)
Mr Ion is a Romanian joiner with limited English who worked for Citu Manufacturing Ltd from December 2018 until July 2020. Ion’s team was led by Mr ... Subscribers only
Delay not fatal to constructive dismissal claim (424 words)
Dr Leaney worked at Loughborough University from 1979 to 2010. In addition to his teaching duties, he had a role as warden of a hall of residence. ... Subscribers only
Harassment claim requires that unwanted conduct is related to sex (549 words)
Miss Ha started working for Blanc de Provence Ltd (BDP) in January 2019 as a tailor at their Marylebone store. In March 2020 two male managers, Mr ... Subscribers only
Health & safety news
School unions welcome inspection pause (217 words)
Unions representing teachers and school leaders have welcomed the announcement by the incoming chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver, that there will be ... Open access
Nurses' union demands Covid variant advice update (253 words)
The RCN nurses’ union has contacted chief nursing officers in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to find out what action they will take ... Subscribers only
Compensate firefighters, union says (140 words)
Labour’s general election manifesto must include a commitment to swiftly deliver compensation to firefighters who have developed cancer and other ... Open access
Unions welcome exclusion proposals (158 words)
The Prospect and FDA civil service unions welcomed new plans to exclude MPs who are under investigation for violent or sexual offences from the ... Open access
Settlements reflect rising violence in Scottish schools (108 words)
The EIS Scottish teachers’ union called on local authorities and the Scottish government to take urgent action to make schools properly safe and ... Open access
Health & safety - HSE Monitor
Time running out to meet 2025 target (149 words)
Time is running out for National Highways to achieve its target to halve the number of people killed or seriously injured on England’s strategic ... Open access
One resignation 'not enough' (131 words)
The TSSA transport union has called on the Network Rail infrastructure company to invest properly in maintenance after the ORR launched an ... Open access
Union's 'deep concern' over Sellafield safety (335 words)
GMB general union national secretary Andy Prendergast has written to energy secretary Claire Courtinho following an ONR nuclear safety regulator ... Subscribers only
Convictions and £1 million+ fines follow breaches (414 words)
Wolverhampton-based Timmins Waste Services has been convicted of corporate manslaughter, and fined £400,000, following an investigation into the ... Subscribers only
Features
Is sectoral bargaining back on the agenda? (3,133 words)
Labour’s New Deal for Working People, championed by deputy leader Angela Rayner, promises to help reverse the decades-long decline in collective ... Subscribers only
Europe: real pay edges ahead as inflation falls (2,014 words)
Pay rose more rapidly than in recent years in almost all EU states in 2023, with nine states out of 26 (there are no figures for Luxembourg) ... Subscribers only