Dispute over billions of pounds of unpaid overtime

The TUC has published a statistics early in January saying that employees in the UK who do unpaid overtime, do an average of seven hours six minutes extra work a week, and would take home an extra £4,800 a year if they were paid the average wage for those unpaid hours. The TUC has calculated that if everyone in the UK who works unpaid overtime did all their unpaid work at the start of the year, the first day they would get paid would be Friday 23 February. That is why the TUC has declared 23 February 'Work Your Proper Hours Day' and is calling on employees to use it to remind bosses of their extra unpaid work by taking a proper lunch break and going home on time for this one day a year. Employers should also use the day to say thank you to staff for their unpaid work, perhaps by buying them lunch or an after-work coffee or cocktail. Across the UK people did £23 billion worth of unpaid overtime in 2006. But there was a small drop of 18 minutes in the average amount of extra work - from seven hours 24 minutes to seven hours six minutes put in by the average worker doing unpaid overtime. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “We still work the longest hours in Europe and too many workplaces are gripped by a long hours culture. There are some small signs that the UK is getting a bit better, but there is still a long way to go. That is why we say that employees should take a stand on 'Work Your Proper Hours Day' and for just one day a year take a full lunch break and go home on time. “We do not want to turn Britain into a nation of clock watchers and few mind putting in extra effort from time to time when it is needed, but it is too easy for extra time to get taken for granted and then expected every week.” Responding to the TUC’s claim, Susan Anderson, CBI director of human resources policy, said: “It is not in anyone's interest to routinely work very long hours although it can be necessary, as the TUC recognises, at times for staff to work longer than normal. “It is professional staff who tend to work the longest hours and this is reflected in the more generous salaries they earn. Hourly workers who put in long shifts get paid overtime and often welcome the extra money in their pay packets. “What the TUC has not pointed out is that the percentage of people working more than an extra hour a week last year fell to its lowest level for more than 15 years and the total number doing so is 4.78m, down 440,000 since 2003. In fact its Work Your Proper Hours Day is earlier in the calendar this year as a result.” The CBI-Pertemps Employment Trends Survey for 2006 revealed that nine out of ten employers offer at least one form of flexible working to help staff manage their work-life balance, with half offering at least three. More than nine out of ten requests from parents to work flexibly are agreed or an acceptable compromise is reached. Smallest firms are the least likely to decline, which challenges a commonly held belief that small employers are not able to offer staff flexible, family-friendly workplace benefits.