Meeting of the Parliament 01 March 2016
The overall employment situation in Scotland continues to improve. The latest figures highlight that we have record levels of employment and that those levels are higher than those in the UK; that average weekly wages are higher than those in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, with more than 80 per cent of employees paid at least the living wage; and that we have more graduates per head of population than any other nation in the UK.
The committee heard in evidence that
“governments opt to either support a high-skill, high-wage economy, or propagate a low-skill, low-pay economy.”
I believe that the Scottish Government is opting for the high road, but it appears that the UK Government is aiming for the low road. The difficulty for Scottish workers who are in poor-quality low-paid work or who are employed using exploitative zero-hours contracts is that employment law, health and safety and industrial relations are all reserved to Westminster. Legislation in the area is in the hands of a UK Government that focuses on restricting trade unions rather than tackling bad employers.
As a witness from the University of Warwick stated in evidence,
“poor quality cleaning jobs in hotels can get worse when workers are shifted into temporary work agency employment or retail workers put onto zero hours contracts.”
The Poverty Alliance highlighted the impact that that has on employees, stating:
“Those on zero hours contracts can also face confusion about their rights to holiday, sickness and maternity pay, and fluctuating hours can make it difficult to access benefits.”