Taylor Review: All Employment Should Be Fair & Decent
A new report by Matthew Taylor, former aide to Tony Blair, has said that all work in the UK economy should be both fair and decent… and part of this would mean classifying employees for companies like Deliveroo and Uber as dependent contractors with additional benefits.
The Taylor Review further recommends that strategies be implemented so that workers aren’t stuck on the national living wage, and that the government shouldn’t increase the non-wage costs of employing someone further, such as the apprenticeship levy, the BBC reports.
Mr Taylor went on to note that there are currently too many employers relying on agency, short hour or zero hour contracts at the moment, while cash payments should also be phased out.
“Of all the issues that were raised with us as we went around the country, the one that came through most strongly was what the report calls one-sided flexibility.
“One-sided flexibility is where employers seek to transfer all risk onto the shoulder of workers in ways that make people more insecure and makes their lives harder to manage. It’s the people told to be ready for work or travelling to work, only to be told none is available,” Mr Taylor was quoted by the news source as saying.
However, the report has drawn criticism from some quarters. Writing for the Guardian, deputy director of policy with the IPSE Andy Chamberlain noted that it doesn’t go far enough in clarifying what self-employment actually is… being able to decide when and how to work, fitting jobs in around responsibilities and commitments like childcare.
At the moment, self-employment is a default category that people are assigned to when they’re neither workers nor employees – which needs to be clarified.