UCU response to Taylor report on insecure work

Responding to Matthew Taylor’s report looking at modern working practices, the University and College Union (UCU) said insecure workers needed rights not sympathy to end the abuse of exploitative working practices.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: ‘This report offers warm words for people on casual contracts, but it’s tinkering around the edges of the problem. Insecure workers don’t want sympathy, they need real change that gives them proper rights at work and ends exploitative contracts.

‘When it comes to flexibility, too often it is a one-way street. Employees need to have clear rights and a decent contract, not just the option to ask for them. For people who live in daily fear that their hours will be cut if they even speak out, such a right is quite meaningless and makes this review a massive missed opportunity.

‘Zero-hours and other exploitative contracts stop people from being able to plans their lives on a monthly, or even week-by-week basis. It is quite shocking in this day and age that we allow these kind of practices to proliferate, and for bosses to pretend that employer and employee benefit equally from flexibility.’