Monthly Archives: March 2017

Matthew Taylor, who is leading a review into the gig economy, appears on Peston on Sunday. Photograph: S Meddle/ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

Theresa May backs plans for an overhaul of workers rights to reflect 21st-century employment practices, according to the chair of Downing Streets review into modern work.

Matthew Taylor, a former adviser to Tony Blair who was appointed by the prime minister to lead the review into the gig economy, said he would be recommending changes to the rights of self-employed workers when his review was published in June.

Taylor said his review would highlight the blurring of boundaries between people who are self-employed and therefore get few employment rights and people who are classified as employees, eligible for full rights.

If you are subject to control if as an individual in the relationship with the person whos hiring you, they control your work, they control the basis upon which you work, they control the content of your work that looks like the kind of relationship where the quid pro quo should be that you respect that persons employment rights and entitlements, he told ITVs Peston on Sunday.

The question has led to a number of high-profile court cases in recent months. In October, Uber lost a landmark employment tribunal case brought by drivers, who said the stringent conditions placed on their work by the taxi hailing app company meant they were not self-employed, but employees who were entitled to minimum wage and sick pay.

Taylor said he defined the boundary as a question of control that companies have over workers. If you want to control your workers, you will have to respect their rights and provide entitlements, too, but if you really dont want to control them, thats fine, then theyll be self-employed, he said. But there look like there are cases at the moment where firms both want control but not to provide those workers with entitlements and rights.

Taylor said he believed that more industries would soon be faced with workers who were no longer prepared to accept punishing conditions. In the 21st century, a time when we have so much autonomy and choice and we expect control in our lives, we dont accept the idea of kind of wage slavery, the idea of people at work having no choice, no voice, no capacity to influence whats going on around them and I think people feel that doesnt really fit with the times, he said.

Automation was one of the biggest challenges for the his review, Taylor admitted. People want it to be that robots create the possibility for human beings to have fulfilled work, not that we end up serving the machines, he said.

Taylors review has found evidence of companies asking employees to incorporate themselves as sole traders, rather than go on the company payroll, enabling them to avoid benefits such as statutory maternity pay or sick pay, according to the Times.

Taylor expressed some disappointment at the budget U-turn over national insurance contributions, which he said was a kind of battle between politics and policy which he said he hoped would not affect the implementation of his review after it was published in the summer.

I kind of hoped the policy would win this time because it was essential policy, but in the end the politics won and I think that the fact that the Conservatives have made a manifesto pledge about taxes have made it an unsustainable policy, and I do hope the lesson that is learned from this, he said.

Though government sources told the Times they expected May to put her full weight behind Taylors recommendations, the reviews chair said that although the prime minister had been supportive so far, he was realistic about what might happen in future political battles. [What] I have to do is produce the best recommendations I can in the end its up to government to decide what they can implement and that puts us back in the domain of politics, he said.

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PM backs plans to overhaul workers' rights to reflect gig ecomomy ... - The Guardian

Theresa May is to back plans for a radical overhaul of workers' rights to better reflect 21st-century employment practices, says The Guardian.

Matthew Taylor, who was appointed by the Prime Minister to lead a review of the gig economy and modern work, said he would be recommending changes to the rights of self-employed workers in his report, which will be published in June.

He added he will highlight the blurring of boundaries between the rights afforded to the self-employed and those classified as employees.

A growing number of companies, particularly in the delivery sector, now use self-employed workers, who are not entitled to the likes of holiday or sick pay.

However, some argue they are not truly self-employed as their work is typically dictated by the firm for whom they work.

In the UK, a company cannot classify anyone as self-employed if they do not take any financial risk or set the terms and hours they work.

Employment law, however, has a middle ground option of "worker", the status accorded to Uber drivers by a tribunal last year, although this still does not bring with it the right to redundancy pay or to claim unfair dismissal, for example.

Taylor said: "We don't accept the idea of kind of wage slavery, the idea of people at work having no choice, no voice, no capacity to influence what's going on around them."

A number of high-profile legal cases in the past few months have hinged on the balance between employers' control and the rights and entitlements offered to those they employ.

In October, Uber lost a landmark employment tribunal case brought by drivers "who said the stringent conditions placed on their work by the company meant they were employees who were entitled to minimum wage and sick pay", says The Guardian.

There could also be tax implications from the review, after this month's Budget saw Philip Hammond attempt to increase national insurance contributions for self-employed workers.

People who work for themselves currently pay three per cent less national insurance than those directly employed, despite having the same pension rights following reforms in recent years.

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Theresa May to back radical overhaul of workers' rights - The Week UK

Former President, Donald Ramotar addressing the Rose Hall Martyrs commemorative ceremony

The opposition Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) on Sunday intensified its call for sugar industry workers to struggle against the closure or scaling down of several estates, saying the ailing Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) can be revived to supply refined sugar, ethanol, distilled rum and electricity.

Addressing about 300 persons at the Rose Hall Martyrs monument, former President, Donald Ramotar accused the David Granger-led administration of taking a political rather than an economic decision to close several estates and so the only response to that and other anti-working class measures is to embark on a struggle.

Comrades, there can be only one answer to this: We have to strugglethere is no shortcut and to struggle effectively you have to be organised, he said. He identified key ingredients to the struggle as better organised groups of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) and Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO).

You have to make sure that your union functions better. In the first instance, your GAWU groups have to be functioning at the maximum at this time in our country because we cannot fight without organisation.

You have to ensure that your political struggle is also geared because let us be clear on this matter- sugar is not just only an economic struggle. There is also a political struggle and you have to ensure that your PPP groups and your PYO groups are functioning properly so that you can carry on a fight to save this industry and it can be saved if we mount a fight, the former Guyanese leader said.

The veteran politician reasoned that the Guyana government suspended metered parking in Georgetown because the issue was becoming a political problem, rather than merely because ordinary people were being affected. They were not moved by the harm it was having on the economy. They were moved by self-preservation because they see that there was a political consequence to this. That is why political pressure has to be put on them and they must know that there is a political consequence to the action they are taking (in relation to the sugar industry), he said.

Ramotar, a former director of the State-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) , said the industry began falling on hard times when the European Union (EU) imposed a 36 percent cut in sugar prices about 10 years ago but it could be resuscitated. He recommended that government and Guysuco build a sugar refinery to satisfy the Caribbeans 240,000 tonne annual demand for refined sugar, produce ethanol for a vehicular fuel mix, produce distilled rum to supply other Caribbean rum producing nations and install more co-generation plantsat the several other estates to sell electricity to the national grid.

He argued that the billions of dollars that have been disbursed to settle legal cases could have been given to Guysuco, a large debtor to the Guyana Revenue Authority and the National Insurance Scheme.

Former Minister of Culture, Dr. Frank Anthony earlier labeled the APNU+AFC government as despicable by scaling down the sugar industry and creating unemployment instead of jobs. Touching on the issue of severance pay, he said that is a legal entitlement that must be paid.

In a similar vein, Anthony called for struggle against a government has that has promised jobs while electioneering but is now putting people on the breadline. We got independence, and democracy was being trampled upon and sugar workers were always out there at the forefront of the struggle for the restoration of democracy and I am sure that the militancy and the vibrancy of sugar workers- that they will not give in and allow this government to trample upon their rights, said Anthony whose brainchild was the Rose Hall Martyrs Monument.

Dr. Frank Anthony addressing the gathering at the Rose Hall Martyrs monument.

He accused the Granger-led administration of increasing ministerial salaries and taxing the nation as a substitute for failing to attract investment. They are not a government that is putting money in your pocket. They are a government that is picking your pocket. That is what they are doing- creating hardship for the ordinary persons in this country and so in every sector there are people who are against them, said Anthony, the second highest vote-getter at the PPPs Congress held late last year.

Political and financial commentator, Ramon Gaskin warned that shrinking of the sugar industry would result in a loss of at least 10,000 jobs and the only response, he said, must be struggle. These people are stubborn and the only thing they understand is struggle, he said. He noted that Guysuco Chief Executive Officer, Errol Hanoman is being paid GYD$4 million monthly to head a slave-master company that is perpetrating wage slavery.

Gaskin, who had been harshly critical of much of the PPP administration, said Guysucos Chairman, Economics Professor Clive Thomas had said in Commission of Inquiry that the corporation would have produced GYD$13.2 billion profit from cogeneration, land sales and packaging in 2016. Thomas had estimated that Guysuco would have needed GYD$5 billion in subsidy for this year, but instead asked the National Assembly for GYD$9 billion.

PPP speakers blamed the governing A Partnership for National Unity+ Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) for breaking its electoral promises by levying Value Added Tax (VAT) on essential food items, failing to provide increased paddy prices, and not delivering on a promised 20 percent salary and wage hike. Every single working class group has been losing benefits since this government came into office

Region Six Chairman, David Armogan on Sunday urged residents and workers of Rose Hall Estate to resist the closure of the estate because the economies of several areas will collapse.

Speaking at an event to mark the shooting death of several Rose Hall sugar workers by colonial police on March 13, 1913, Armogan said workers must mobilize and be in solidarity to protect their inheritance given to them by their foreparents.

He said they must come out in our numbers to peacefully tell the government not to close the estate. He warned that closure would result in the shutdown of New Amsterdam, Number 19 Village and other neighbouring area, depression and crime.

Armogan said land preparation and fertilization of fields have been halted at Rose Hall, a sign that that estate is being prepared for partial closure.

Government has aid it could no longer afford to continue operations of the loss-making and highly indebted Guyana Sugar Corporation in the same manner.

Indian Action Committee (IAC) activist, Evan Radhay Persaud recounted that on that fateful day, 56 persons were shot and 15 died, several in hospital.

Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) is controlled by the opposition Peoples Progressive Party whose supporters are mainly East Indo-Guyanese. The governing APNU+AFC coalition is dominated by the mainly Afro-Guyanese supported Peoples National Congress Reform (PNCR).

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PPP rallies supporters in sugar belt to struggle against closure of estates - Demerara Waves

Prime Minister Theresa Maywillsupport an overhaul of gig economy workers rights, according to Government sources speaking to the Times.

Speaking on ITVs Peston on Sunday, Matthew Taylor, who was appointed by May to review the gig economy, stopped short of confirming these reports [she has been] supportive so far and acknowledged the political reality of the situation: [What] I have to do is produce the best recommendations I can in the end its up to government to decide what they can implement and that puts us back in the domain of politics.

He spoke about the gig economy as a whole on the rival to The Andrew Marr Show, especially the blurred lines that currently exist in this sphere.

He said: If you are subject to control if as an individual in the relationship with the person whos hiring you, they control your work, they control the basis upon which you work, they control the content of your work that looks like the kind of relationship where the quid pro quo should be that you respect that persons employment rights and entitlements.

A key differentiator in the gig economy, and one that has already caused a bloody nose to Uber and Pimlico Plumbers, is that companies think they are giving workers flexibility, while some of the said workers feel they are being exploited. This, Taylor continued, is down to a question of control.

If you want to control your workers, you will have to respect their rights and provide entitlements, too, but if you really dont want to control them, thats fine, then theyll be self-employed, he explained. But [it] look[s] like there are cases at the moment where firms both want control but not to provide those workers with entitlements and rights.

In the 21st century, a time when we have so much autonomy and choice and we expect control in our lives, we dont accept the idea of a kind of wage slavery, the idea of people at work having no choice, no voice, no capacity to influence whats going on around them and I think people feel that doesnt really fit with the times.

Taylors view seems to fit in with the mood of the times. A survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) accused gig economy employers of having their cake and eating it. Two-thirds of the gig economy workers surveyed said the Government needs to step in to ensure basic workers rights.

The CIPDs report, To Gig or Not To Gig: Stories from the modern economy, also threw up a few more interesting statistics: 14% of respondents said they did gig work because they could not find alternative employment; the commonest reason for gig economy work was to increase income (32%); and that gig economy workers are as satisfied with their job as traditional employees (46% compared to 48%).

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Theresa May WILL back gig economy workers' rights changes, sources say - Business Grapevine