For every problem in the world of work, it’s usually possible to dream up a policy solution. Zero-hour contracts create insecurity? Let’s ban them. People are burnt out? Let’s create a “right to disconnect”. The British public should expect lots of proposals like these in the run-up to the next election, given the main political parties don’t want to promise anything that involves hefty public spending. But every time I hear ideas like these I want to interject: can we start by just enforcing the laws we’ve already got?
A study of UK labour market enforcement by the Resolution Foundation think-tank reveals the scale of the problem: almost a third of workers paid at or around the wage floor were underpaid the minimum wage last year; 900,000 workers say they don’t get holiday pay, even though it’s a right from day one; 1.8mn say they don’t get a payslip; and about 600,000 haven’t been enrolled in a pension scheme by their employer when they should have been. Meanwhile, the employment tribunal system is plagued with delays and backlogs. With admirable honesty, the government’s director of labour market enforcement said recently that workers rarely approached her office directly as “they probably haven’t the foggiest who we are”.
What’s going wrong? Unlike in other countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Australia, which have one prominent organisation to enforce most employment rights, in the UK the role is spread across six different bodies managed by six...
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