British Workers' Unpaid Overtime 'Worth A Million Jobs' - Polidicks

[release] [B]Workers gave bosses nearly two billion hours of unpaid overtime last year, enough to create a million extra full-time jobs, according to the TUC. [/B]The 1,968 million hours of overtime is worth £29.2bn to the UK economy. The study found 5.3 million workers put in an average of 7.2 hours of unpaid overtime a week last year, worth around £5,300 a year per person. Workers in London and the South East did the most unpaid work, with 26.9% and 25% of employees likely to work extra hours for free respectively. Staff in the West Midlands and the North East experienced the sharpest rise in the likelihood of working unpaid overtime over the last year, up 3% and 2.2% respectively. Many of the extra hours were a result of a work culture of "pointless presenteeism", but persistent and excessive unpaid overtime was holding back job creation, according to the analysis. It said some employers were also forcing staff to work extremely long hours that could damage their health. Taking on extra employees would be far more productive and provide much needed jobs. Nicola Smith, head of economic and social affairs at the TUC, told Sky News: "With unemployment at 8.3% if employers have got a lot of extra work to do there’s obviously the option of taking on more staff and helping to boost employment across the economy."She added that the findings were partly a result of the tough economic climate. "What this represents is employees putting in a huge amount of extra unpaid effort that they are not being remunerated for to help businesses get by in tough times," she said. If workers who regularly put in unpaid overtime worked all their hours from the start of the year, the first day they would get paid would be February 24. The TUC have named this date this year as its annual Work Your Proper Hours Day. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said the unpaid hours made "a vital - but often unsung - contribution" to the UK economy. Barber added: "No-one wants to see us become a nation of clock-watchers. But a more sensible and grown up attitude to working time could cut out needless unpaid hours and help more people into work." The number of workers doing unpaid overtime has increased by more than a million since records began in 1992, when 4.2 million people regularly did unpaid overtime. [/release] [URL="http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16142805"]Source is Sky News[/URL] To put things into perspective, as of November 2011 there were 2.64 million people unemployed - over a third of whom could be working according to these figures, although that'd rely on the goodwill of businesses (unlikely) or the Government taking action against companies relying on this (equally unlikely).

Wow. Fucking wow.

Making employees salaried/exempt is bullshit.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;34064084]Making employees salaried/exempt is bullshit.[/QUOTE] Well, you aren't legally required to do any overtime, paid or otherwise, and in theory if a company fired you for not working overtime, that'd be a valid reason to take them to an industrial tribunal. I suppose the issue is that a large number of people don't realise that, or get guilt tripped into it.

[QUOTE=Camundongo;34064237]Well, you aren't legally required to do any overtime, paid or otherwise, and in theory if a company fired you for not working overtime, that'd be a valid reason to take them to an industrial tribunal. I suppose the issue is that a large number of people don't realise that, or get guilt tripped into it.[/QUOTE] I know the article is about the UK, but I don't think you can do this in the US.

A good friend of mine had to come into work at M&S at 5am and finished at 7pm on Christmas Eve. If he didn't, he would be fired! Is this the kind of overtime they are talking about?

[QUOTE=Camundongo;34064237]Well, you aren't legally required to do any overtime, paid or otherwise, and in theory if a company fired you for not working overtime, that'd be a valid reason to take them to an industrial tribunal. I suppose the issue is that a large number of people don't realise that, or get guilt tripped into it.[/QUOTE] How most people get away with anything in society, relying on peoples gullibility and not knowing their laws.

[QUOTE=Stockers678;34065157]A good friend of mine had to come into work at M&S at 5am and finished at 7pm on Christmas Eve. If he didn't, he would be fired! Is this the kind of overtime they are talking about?[/QUOTE] If he wasn't paid for that overtime then yes, or sorts however. Some aren't really blackmailed like that, they do it in fear that they will be fired if they don't. Very unfair really

It's a common practice in the states too, depends entirely on the job though. When I worked in corrections the county I worked for made people work overtime and created some bullshit loop hole so they don't have to pay you for it. But you're awarded hours in your "hour bank" once you reach a certain number then you finally get paid for it. Then if you wanted to use the hours to take a day off or vacation for a week it was rejected due to not enough staffing. They owe like over a million dollars of overtime to their employees. It is fucking disgusting, i did the math and it turned out that like I would take like 30-50 days of overtime to reach that limit. So if you have to work 6 days a week it would take like months of working 6-7 weeks to get it. So literally they burn you out to the point people quit. Then do the same thing to the new people so they get burnt out and quit. The turn over is like for every 4 people, 3 will quit.

Iwork in a supermarket. Hate it, and see a lot of managers guilt-tripping employees into doing longer hours 'for a favour'. When the tables are turned and the person needs a particular day off for example, they don't want to know. Very short staffed as well.

[QUOTE=Camundongo;34064237]Well, you aren't legally required to do any overtime, paid or otherwise, and in theory if a company fired you for not working overtime, that'd be a valid reason to take them to an industrial tribunal. I suppose the issue is that a large number of people don't realise that, or get guilt tripped into it.[/QUOTE] Local government is a lot like that - you're expected to work late to finish reports, and while I didn't work shift (it was flexi-time), there were minutes and hours of unlogged work time if you had a busy week and didn't keep up with the figures. Putting employees on flexi-time rather than shift-time would save a lot of underwork/overwork figures running amok. Though I would like to know how the TUC calculated this.

I know at my job if you don't work overtime then the managers use the logic of "oh, you must not want to work as much" and will slash your hours drastically to scare you into working overtime next time if you said no.

Heh, why waste money hiring more people when you can just threaten, bully, and intimidate existing employees into working for free?

[QUOTE=Bryanrocks0;34069265]I know at my job if you don't work overtime then the managers use the logic of "oh, you must not want to work as much" and will slash your hours drastically to scare you into working overtime next time if you said no.[/QUOTE] Boy am I glad that's illegal to do here

[QUOTE=Zeke129;34069327]Boy am I glad that's illegal to do here[/QUOTE] Stupid Canadians with your workers rights.

[QUOTE=Bryanrocks0;34069335]Stupid Canadians with your workers rights.[/QUOTE] Place I worked was also unionized comrade

I know that in some NHS departments spending cuts mean people pretty much have to do unpaid overtime, otherwise people start dying when their test results aren't handled quickly enough etc. On the other hand the place I worked over summer (not the NHS) had special rules saying people could not work over Christmas because they have trouble persuading people to leave work and take sensible amounts of time off.

I don't get paid over time, I get lieu time, which means if I work 8 hours over time I can have a paid day off.