Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360-378)
UNION OF
SHOP, DISTRIBUTIVE,
AND ALLIED
WORKERS
20 DECEMBER 2004
Q360 Judy Mallaber: So did you pick that
as a suggestion to be looked at because it seemed to be at about
the right level of pay or because you thought there was actually
a logic to using a median?
Mr Markall: There was a logic.
As I said, we had to try to find a point of reference in our mind
and a realistic anchor to answer the question; "what do you
think it should be?" We chose that anchor because it was
the kind of proportion that used to prevail all down the years,
certainly until the Wage Councils were lost. There seemed no good
reason not to address that as a way forward going into the future,
not least because it repaired the damage that had been done.
Q361 Judy Mallaber: On the Low Pay Commission
itself, you obviously like that approach; are there ways in which
they work which you would like to see them do differently or are
you pretty satisfied with the mechanisms that they use and the
work that they do?
Mr Markall: This is a fair question.
We are delighted with what they have done so far. We may say go
a bit further, go a bit further, but I do not think anyone could
detract from the way they have operated, the caution they have
exercised and the prudence they have brought to bear. I think
the fact that the Government has embraced, by and large (not entirely)
what the Low Pay Commission has had to say, certainly on adult
rates, is a recommendation of their way of working.
Mr Lillis: Also what they have
done for the million of workers not covered by collective agreements
with trade unions. It has helped bring their wages up so that
has been a big positive as well.
Q362 Chairman: Two small things there.
One, to what extent do the views you have just expressed enjoy
currency with other unions in the TUC because your evidence is
a wee bit different from what we have seen from the TUC?
Mr Markall: The TUC is a confederation
and people have different priorities. Some will talk about a money
sum, some will talk about a formula. We are principally a supporter
of the Low Pay Commission and that way of working.
Q363 Chairman: One other question, your
members who are currently in these jobs are very often on the
minimum wage, so what is the point in being in a union if their
wages are going up anyway? They are not going to go up by very
much but what is the point of being in a union, or is that a question
I should not be asking?
Mr Markall: The answer is something
I wear as a bit of a medal really. It is because being in a union
is about a lot more than your basic rate of pay. All the surveys
that engage people about why they do or do not join a trade union
show that the people who join do so for protection and defence
at work, and that has always been so and it still is, and that
is about a lot more than basic pay, particularly in an arena where
anything like a handsome pay deal is unheard of. We are talking
about percentage points above inflation for the most part in retail,
and not something that is going to have people turning cartwheels.
What we have to do, as I think I mentioned earlier, is to extend
our bargaining agenda to the whole range of fronts that matter
to people, and they do matter. We listen to what our members say,
strangely enough. For donkeys' years they have been saying, "I
cannot get someone to mind my kids and get to work reliably."
"I hate it when they are ill and there is nothing I can do
about it." "I don't like the way my manager keeps chopping
my hours." Those are the kind of issues we have to engage
in as much as anything else.
Mr Lillis: Those are some of the
bread and butter issues but the other point I would make is USDAW
as a union has continued to grow year-on-year by a 10,000 or 12,000
net increase. Even with the turnover we have of 60,000 or 70,000
members, we are still getting a net increase of between 10,000
and 12,000 each year, so there is evidence that people continue
to join unions as opposed to not.
Q364 Mr Clapham: Before I turn to the
Working Time Directive could I just ask a question in terms of
what you had to say there, Mr Markall, about trade unions being
much more than wage rates, relating to the health and safety of
retail workers. Is health and safety an issue and, if it is, is
it more an issue related to physical injuries such as the lifting
type of injuries or is it more the psychological type of injuries?
Is stress a problem? If so, are these physical and psychological
injuries, shall we say, more relative in the larger companies
than the smaller companies?
Mr Markall: With respect, I am
going to pass to Ruth to answer this because she has headed up
an enormous campaign around this question that bears on the kind
of pressures and stresses that people are under in the retail
environment. Can I do that?
Q365 Mr Clapham: Yes, certainly.
Ms Stoney: Our Freedom from Fear
campaign has looked very much at the massive issue of violence
and threats and abuse against shop workers. It is a job that involves
an incredible amount of skill in dealing with the public, and
in dealing not only with criminals who try and target retail but
also with aggressive and abusive customers, and those stresses
place enormous psychological strain on people. We have had a lot
of evidence and I do not think we have found a single shop worker
who has not suffered certainly from verbal abuse during their
working life and many of them suffer this on a daily basis, and
it makes it a very difficult part of the job. It is also a very
strenuous job. Within a four-hour shift, a check-out operator
will lift a tonne from a sitting position, and this has very serious
implications for a lot of our members with manual handling injuries,
and particularly for women who are pregnant it is a very
serious problem. There are both the psychological and stress pressures,
particularly on the violence and abuse side, for people in management
roles. Retail management is one of the most stressful occupations
you can have because you are dealing not only with the pressures
of a very competitive sector but with aggressive and abusive people
as well.
Q366 Mr Clapham: Can I ask in relation
to what you said there about pregnant woman et cetera in the seated
position at many of the check-outs, have you had any input at
all into the design of seating so that people get more ergonomically
designed seating?
Mr Lillis: Yes, our own health
and safety department has worked with most of the big retailers
over a number of years in terms of design, involving employees
and members in that, so in particular we work closely with the
likes of Tesco's on the design of any product that is going to
be used by staff, so yes there is quite a bit of co-operation.
It is in everybody's interest.
Q367 Mr Clapham: What about common law
damages, do you refer cases to your solicitors? Is it one of the
issues, for example, that you are able to campaign on?
Mr Lillis: I think for the vast
majority of the trade union movement in terms of free legal services,
it is one of the big pluses that people have because of the high
cost of legal services. If you join a union there is a free legal
service there. I think compensation recovered last year was just
over £1 million for our members. We do not want to be having
to recover that, we do not want our members injured, but it is
a fact of life, it does happen.
Q368 Mr Clapham: Can I turn now to the
Working Time Directive. Do you have any information on how it
is impacting on your members?
Mr Markall: We have conducted
two pieces of survey research in the last 12 months, one with
our road transport drivers. They are the people who drive the
very large vehicles who will be covered by the Road Transport
Directive next March but who had been entirely excluded from the
scope of the Working Time Regulations until August 2003 when they
were only partially included, so in terms of the length of the
working week for a heavy goods vehicle driver, who are even now
completely unregulated, there is regulation on driving time but
not working time. We conducted a survey of them about 12 months
ago to see what their experiences of the long hours working were
and we also conducted a survey very much more recently in August/September
of this year of people in what we broadly term "white collar"
occupations where we felt long hours of working may have been
an issue, and the way in which they accessed or were refused access
to the opt-out and how those long hours came about and under what
conditions and so on and so on. I am happy to pass that information
to the Committee or to try and encapsulate that for you as well
if you have got time.
Q369 Mr Clapham: That would be helpful.
Can I just ask in relation to the opt-out, did your surveys find
that employees were coming under any undue pressure to opt out?
Mr Markall: Of both groups, about
30% told us they felt they had been put under pressure to work
long hours. Road transport drivers could not have been put under
pressure to opt out because it simply was not relevant for them,
they were not covered in the first place, but both groups felt
pressure to work long hours and in the case of the white collar
workers to opt out of any 48-hour control. So there was some clear
evidence that that was happening. Something like a quarter of
the white collar people believed when they entered the job that
working long hours was a condition of employment. That is not
to say the employer was hoodwinking them but maybe saying they
did not know any better, and certainly there was a problem there.
Q370 Mr Clapham: And that is contained
in the surveys that you did and you are going to let us have them?
Mr Markall: Absolutely.
Q371 Sir Robert Smith: Can I expand on
the working experience. How much of it is also about the anti-social
hours rather than the length of hours that people are having to
work in the 24-hour lifestyle?
Mr Markall: The two can be one
and the same thing very often and certainly the evidence of the
drivers that reported to us about the impact on their social and
family lives was quite extraordinary and some of it was very moving.
The extent to which their relationships had collapsed, their children
had grown up and they had never seen them, and so on. This was
among a body of muscular, male drivers where the stereotype would
tell you not to expect that kind of feedback. There was clearly
some very real impact and damage being done to their lives by
the kinds of hours and shift patterns they were expected to work.
Q372 Sir Robert Smith: How is the current
practice progressing? There is quite a lot of talk about enlightened
employers working round people's school day or family commitments
and flexible rostering especially in the retail sector. There
is talk of that; I just wondered how much of a reality it is.
Ms Stoney: Just to come in on
that, I am working currently on USDAW's Parents and Carers campaign,
so we are looking at a lot of these issues. Obviously in retail
and the service sector as a whole it is a major problem in that
the busiest times are at the weekends and in the evenings when
particularly people with parental responsibilities have the most
problems in being able to work and they want and need to spend
their time with their children. So there are serious problems
around that. A lot of retail contracts are now being changed so
that people do have to be quite flexible around when they work
and the experience varies company to company. We are finding that
a lot of companies are needing to bring in flexible hours contracts
where people work from a core of a low number of hours and then
have to flex up at times when it is busiest in the run up to Christmas
but that then they are struggling when they are on low pay in
those low hours. In the best cases then—and it may vary
from store to store and manager to manager—people may be
able to input themselves when they are able to work and the store
will try wherever possible to work round that, but obviously in
the worst case scenarios it is far more prescriptive about when
they are rostered to work and it is much more difficult for them
to swap shifts and to change.
Q373 Sir Robert Smith: So flexible working
is getting worse for people. You are saying in the good store
with the good manager there is an input from the person affected
who can maybe take advantage of the flexibility but in the bad
or medium store with an okay manager?
Ms Stoney: In our members' experience,
flexibility is a dirty word because it is flexibility in the interests
of the employer not of the employee.
Q374 Sir Robert Smith: What is the trend
at the moment? Is it getting worse for the employee or—
Ms Stoney: I think we would find
that it is definitely getting worse because of the increased competition
in retail. Because retail customers tend to swap and change and
use their market power, then the amount of time that specific
stores are able to allocate on their staff often depends on the
turnover, either in the preceding weeks or in the period going
up to that, so a manager will never know how many person hours
they can offer until they know what the turnover of the store
has been and then they have to create their rotas and shifts based
on that number of person hours and it can go up or down from week
to week, which creates serious problems with interaction
with the benefits system as well as for people with caring responsibilities
and people just trying to pay their mortgages from week to week
where they have got a varying amount of income. They will quite
often try and take second jobs but that is very difficult to fit
in where your hours are varying. This is one of the reasons why
job satisfaction is decreasing because people have much less control
over their hours and their pay.
Q375 Mr Clapham: Are there any employers
that stand out as being much more, shall we say, compassionate
than the others?
Mr Markall: What Ruth said is
accurate but what you may find is it is in the nature of large
retail businesses that you could have a very progressive policy
at corporate level, and there are employers who fit that model,
but by the time it finds its way on to what could be several 100
shop floors, if it is a large retail enterprise, with goodness
knows how many thousands of management teams, the message gets
a little wobbly and the practice is rather different. It is true
to say that there are some employers now who are keen to understand
what they call "their people" better, to make it easier
to work for the "business concern", as they put it and
to be more attentive—very ambitiously on paper—to
the needs and interests of the vast number of people who are on
their payroll. It is easy to be cynical but they are only doing
and saying what generations of trade union people have told them:
treat your people well and you will get a more stable, less costly
and more productive workforce, and at least at corporate level
some of them are trying to embrace that message. It is easy to
be cynical. They have colonised everything else. They have colonised
the clock 24 hours, they have colonised out of town, they have
colonised the competition. They are now turning to the last body
of people where they can gain a competitive edge and it is the
most difficult body of people, the people with hearts and minds.
Nonetheless, some of them are extremely intent on making sure
they win those hearts and minds and that is what we are in the
business of helping them to do.
Mr Lillis: The fact we launched
a Parents and Carers campaign for 2005 and beyond is in some respects
to test some of the corporate policies that they have on flexible
working. One of the core issues that impacts for us is the high
turnover of staff in retail, which puts immense pressure on the
managers in running their businesses. Again, it is a two-way process,
it is having to work together to get solutions not in terms of
flexibility one way just for the employer, but flexibility to
ensure that our members, their employees, have the flexibility
for their care and duty to their families, their children, the
elderly, the disabled, and bring that in. We can all work together
to that end. Some of the big retailers are working quite closely
with us on this. I think Graham is right, when it comes down to
the shop floor level there are immense pressures on everyone,
and the corporate policy goes out the window.
Q376 Judy Mallaber: Can I just ask on
that last issue whether you have managed to do any analysis of
responses by employers to requests for using the new flexibility
in terms of having children? Have you done any analysis of what
the response has been and how far that has been taken up by large
stores?
Ms Stoney: We are currently trying
to analyse and get evidence from our members who have requested
flexible working on what the response has been. Obviously in general
people are more likely to come to a trade union if they have been
refused a request but we are certainly getting very high levels
of requests being refused and our union reps, who are trying to
support people in the workplace in both successful and unsuccessful
requests for flexible working, particularly for mothers who are
returning to work after having a baby, are finding that there
are very high levels of refusal of people's requests to work flexibly,
and the figures that the DTI have brought out of 90% of requests
being accepted is certainly not our experience and we are looking
to bring together a body of evidence of when that policy is refused
to show what our members' experience has been.
Judy Mallaber: Thank you.
Q377 Chairman: I live in Edinburgh, a
city of nearly half a million people and they have four or five
big supermarket chains. Do people move within the chains or do
they move from one company to another? The "voting with their
feet" syndrome. Do you have instances of people who go from,
let's say, Tesco's to Sainsbury's because they are not getting
the flexible working in the one and they might get it in the other.
If you have membership in one the names will crop up again so
does your database throw up that sort of information?
Mr Lillis: Our database does not
throw it up. However, we are in the process of doing work on that
because clearly with 60,000 or 70,000 turnover in our own membership
in the retail sector it is in our interests to try and reduce
those numbers. Certainly as a local official going round a store
you will meet people in Tesco's who have left and six to eight
weeks later you will meet them in Sainsbury's or you will meet
them somewhere else. They tend to have breaks for specific reasons.
They will leave for three or four months and then go to another
retailer but most of them tend to stay in the retail environment.
Q378 Chairman: Okay. I think that has
covered virtually everything. I think there are one or two points
we would like you to get back to us on but we will be in touch
with you. We will probably not be putting pen to paper until early
in the New Year and if you wanted to send in anything that your
research has thrown up we would be very grateful and very happy
to receive it.
Mr Lillis: We will certainly do
that.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
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