The Scottish Government has determined that Scotland will become a Fair Work Nation by 2025. A major new report for the Jimmy Reid Foundation assesses Fair Work and union representatives’ experiences and recommends further action.
The report concludes that the largely voluntary approach taken to Scotland’s Fair Work initiative has made a limited but positive contribution to improving working lives, particularly in the broader public services. However, it has not yet delivered major results, as evidenced by the continued prevalence of poor-quality work across Scotland’s labour market. If Scotland is to claim to be a Fair Work Nation in 2025, much more needs to be done to turn the worthy ambition into reality.
The report was launched at an online meeting on 31 August 2023. The meeting heard from the report’s author, Dave Watson, and discussed the actions needed to turn the worthy ambition of a Fair Work Nation into reality. You can watch the introduction here.
The full report can be read and downloaded below:
We have also published a guide to Fair Work for union representatives, which can be read and downloaded below.
Plus, the sides of Dave Watson’s introductory presentation.
Outline
This paper describes the Fair Work initiative in Scotland and the journey to get here since devolution. It is a largely voluntary effort to raise employment standards using the powers of the devolved administration, including soft power encouragement and harder-edged procurement and grant awarding powers. Fair Work reflects a broad consensus across civil society and politically in Scotland that poor work drives negative outcomes beyond the labour market. Insecure work, long hours and low pay impact families and communities and are key drivers of inequality.
While Fair Work has impacted working lives, the fundamentals of low pay, poor working conditions and the absence of effective voice in many workplaces remain a feature of the Scottish labour market. While support for the initiative remains strong, there are frequent calls from unions and civil society organisations for the rhetoric of Fair Work to match the reality.
To move beyond aspiration to implementation that delivers fundamental change to employment culture, the report looked at various proposals to make Fair Work more effective. It makes recommendations that are within the powers of the Scottish Government, employers and trade unions to implement. We don’t avoid the issue of devolving employment law, which would undoubtedly strengthen Fair Work. However, the focus is on what can be done now.
The Director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation, Dave Watson, said:
“The largely voluntary approach taken to Scotland’s Fair Work initiative has made a limited but positive contribution to improving working lives, particularly in the broader public services. However, it has not yet delivered major results, as evidenced by the continued prevalence of poor-quality work across Scotland’s labour market. If Scotland is to claim to be a Fair Work Nation in 2025, much more needs to be done to turn the worthy ambition into reality.”
We are grateful for the time and contributions of workplace representatives and others who enabled this study and for the support and funding of the Alex Ferry Foundation.
