Workers in the United Kingdom lost holiday pay amounting to £2 billion, while over a million people did not receive a single day of paid leave.
At the first Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference led by a Labour administration in 15 years, unions presented new trade study highlighting how workers face denial of paid leave while they have a right to 28 days paid vacation in a typical five-day week.
The study revealed that 1.1 million employees (one in 25) did not receive any of the 28 allocated days. Black and minority ethnic people suffered disproportionately more, low-paid workers are at the greatest risk of losing paid leave. Waiters and waitresses, care workers and home carers, as well as catering assistants, are among those who have lost out the most. Therefore, the lack of enforcement in matters such as minimum wage and the legal right to wage compensation, according to the study.
The TUC called on Labor to move forward with its promised Fair Work Agency, a new comprehensive oversight body with powers to prosecute and fine companies that violate the rights of their employees. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:
More than a million working people have been deprived of any of the paid leave they are due, and hundreds of thousands more have been denied basic rights like being paid the minimum wage. These shocking findings show why we need the employment rights bill and the Fair Work Agency.
The research comes at a time when the Labour government and the trade union movement have largely united ahead of the TUC conference. During the July election, most Labour-affiliated unions remained extremely loyal to Keir Starmer, and Unite was the only major union to express serious concerns about a perceived retreat from Labour’s agenda of improving workers’ rights.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves promoted pay agreements for NHS workers, teachers, the armed forces, train drivers and junior doctors after the election, seeing the agreements as an important early step to stimulate the economy and overcome some of the barriers to growth. Separately, Reeves later said she would abolish winter fuel payments.
This weekend’s conference will continue to raise and debate difficult policy issues for Labour, including calls for a wealth tax on the richest 1 per cent and increased public ownership of industries such as water and social care, as well as a renegotiation of the Brexit agreement with the European Union.
