2. The Statutory Floor of Employment Rights: A Bad Case of Subsidence?
| Pages | 9-19 |
| Published date | 01 May 1987 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055104 |
| Date | 01 May 1987 |
| Author | Richard W. Painter |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
2.
The Statutory Floor of
Employment Rights: A
Bad Case of Subsidence?
by Richard W. Painter
Introduction and Context
As we have indicated in the introductory
section,
the employment protection legislation
was drafted principally with full-time, permanent employees — so called "core
workers"— in mind. The legislation of the mid-70s which established the "statutory
floor of employment rights" effectively excluded millions of workers from its protections
because they were considered to be self-employed, or failed to qualify through lack
of continuity of employment. Indeed, it may well be argued that, if the policy behind
the legislation was to protect those workers which collective bargaining could not
reach,
the groups who were excluded — the "peripheral workers" — were the ones
in the greatest need of protection.
It is a paradox that at the very moment the contemporary structure of labour law
was erected, the labour market started a rapid transformation, both in terms of
composition and structure, leaving even more workers engaged, for instance, as part-
timers, casuals, homeworkers, or as part of
a
government training scheme[1], on the
margins of employment law protections.
Part-time workers constitute the largest single group of "peripheral" workers. Trends
in the UK labour market over recent years show
a
marked increase in part-time work
as full-time work has declined. Most of the growth in the number of part-time jobs,
and the increase of part-timers as a proportion of the workforce, has resulted from
changes in the structure of the labour market. Manufacturing, traditionally employing
few part-timers, has declined, while the services sector, which has always engaged
a relatively large number, has grown. The preliminary results of the 1985 Labour Force
Survey showed that about 4.5 million people work less than 30 hours
a
week, women
constituting around 90 per cent of this total and married women accounting for some
three-quarters of all part-timers[2]. Whilst the increase in part-time working since
the 60s may be explained by employer appreciation of the benefits in terms of lower
overheads, increased productivity and greater flexibility engendered by the use of
part-time labour, there are serious disadvantages from the worker's point of view,
not least the low rate of pay relative to full-time employment. A House of Lords
committee which examined the problems of part-time workers, made this comment
on the part-time worker's economic vulnerability:
Part-time employees, while contributing significantly to the development of the economy and to
the flexibility of the productive system are as a group still behind their full-time colleagues in regard
to wage rates, access to training and promotion and the provision of other benefits. This is both
economically self-defeating and socially unacceptable, not least when it reinforces other types of
discrimination such as that between male and female employees[3].
As will be
seen,
this economic vulnerability is compounded by the status and working
hours requirements of our employment protection law, with the result that
a
significant
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