by Matthew Taylor @RSAMatthew
The RSA’s Bridges to the Future campaign seeks to understand the relationship between crisis and change. Our goal is to identify and pursue possibilities to emerge from the pandemic on a progressive trajectory. We have suggested that crisis is most likely to long-term intentional change when three conditions apply:
- Where significant demand and capacity for change pre-exists the crisis
- Where the demand for change increases during the crisis, and in the response to crisis we see a different future being prefigured
- Where, as societies and institutions emerge from crisis, there are political coalitions and practical policies and innovations ready to take advantage of a greater openness to change and adjustment.
For several years I have focused much of my time on trying to improve the quality of work in the UK economy. Using these criteria how do prospects for that project look as we emerge from the first stage of the Covid-19 crisis?
In the UK and other developed countries, a number of factors had led to growing momentum behind good work before the pandemic struck. These included awareness of the growth of non-standard ways of working including self-employment and platform-enabled gig working. This combined with rising public concern about exploitation and the precarious nature of work for many people, itself linked in many places to a broader swing in public sentiment towards a more collectivist mindset (displayed, for example, in a preference for tax rises over spending cuts). But the most important factor may have been the virtual eradication of mass unemployment.
Having long been interested in work quality, I often tried to raise the issue when I worked in government in the early noughties. To be fair, Labour made some significant reforms including introducing the minimum wage, strengthening labour market enforcement and compliance, extending parental leave, introducing paternity leave and creating the right to request flexible working. Yet, officials and ministers tended to view the wider concept of work quality not just as a secondary concern in comparison to work quantity but also as a distraction from what really mattered. The policy framework promoted, particularly by the Treasury and Department of Work and Pensions was ‘work first’ based on the evidence that almost any job was better for an individual and family’s life chances than no job. My argument was further hampered because, while the distinction between having gainful employment and being out of work is pretty clear cut, the very idea of objective measures of work quality was contestable.
In 2016 I was appointed by Theresa May to lead a commission on the implications of modern working practices. After the frustrating experience of trying to influence a Labour government from inside, it was important to persuade my fellow commissioners and then the government to accept work quality as an explicit public policy goal.
Page one of the Good Work report, published in 2017 and endorsed by the then Prime Minister, Theresa May at a launch at the RSA, called for a commitment to all work in the UK economy being “fair and decent with scope for development and fulfillment”.
The report went on to identify five rationales for this commitment:
- Because, despite the important contribution of the living wage and the benefit system, fairness demands that we ensure people, particularly those on lower incomes, have routes to progress in work, have the opportunity to boost their earning power, and are treated with respect and decency at work.
- Because, while having employment is itself vital to people’s health and wellbeing, the quality of people’s work is also a major factor in helping people to stay healthy and happy, something which benefits them and serves the wider public interest.
- Because better designed work that gets the best out of people can make an important contribution to tackling our complex challenge of low productivity.
- Because we should, as a matter of principle, want the experience of work to match the aspirations we have for modern citizenship; that people feel they are respected, trusted and enabled and expected to take responsibility.
- Because the pace of change in the modern economy, and particularly in technology and the development of new business models, means we need a concerted approach to work which is both up to date and responsive and based on enduring principles of fairness.
Having seen the most important ideas of many government commissions kicked into the long grass to be lost and forgotten (Andrew Dilnot on social care, Lyons on local government, Tomlinson on post 16, to name some high profile examples over the last 20 or so years), my focus was on impact. On the one hand, I worked hard to keep the commission’s work in the public eye while. On the other, I worked with officials and ministers to try to ensure a positive reception for our recommendations.
The government was initially very supportive of the report and has never officially moved from that position despite the change of tenure in Downing Street. There were some significant early moves. This included:
- provision for day one statement of terms and conditions for all workers
- the abolition of the Swedish derogation (a loophole allowing firms not to pay agency workers equal pay)
- a major shift (from 10% to 2%) in the threshold for proportion of workers needed to mandate arrangement for staff representation, information and consultation.
- the goal of good work was included in industrial strategy and government committed to developing work quality metrics and being accountable for them.
However, given that I advocated an incremental approach, the ultimate assessment of the commission’s success now depends on what happens in relation to the government’s proposed Employment Bill, the details of which are still unknown.
Three issues are particularly important:
- measures to give better rights and protections to workers on zero, or close to zero, hours contracts
- improving the clarity and policing of the boundary between self-employment and employment status
- and giving the proposed Single Enforcement Body the remit, powers and funds it needs to make a substantial impact on labour market non-compliance.
I am continuing to press officials and ministers to implement more of the recommendations of Good Work. But the government has made other advances, which go beyond my report. Most importantly, the current Prime Minister has reasserted the commitment to raise the National Living Wage.
As the Resolution Foundation recently pointed out, the proportion of workers receiving low wages (less than two thirds of median earnings) is now — at 15% — the lowest it has been for 40 years. Furthermore, the government is pledged to raise the national minimum wage to the low pay threshold by the next election; in other words, the total eradication of legal low pay. The qualifying age is also due to drop from 25 to 21.
What does the pandemic mean for good work? So far, so good.
The latest national minimum wage increase was due on 1 April. While, there were some who suggested it should be delayed due to the pandemic, encouragingly, the government did not change its plans. Neither have I heard any suggestion that the Employment Bill is to be sidelined.
Intriguingly, when unveiling the self-employment income support scheme in April the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said he intended to look again at the taxing of self-employed labour. This could signal the possibility of broader reforms with all types of labour taxed more consistently as a quid pro quo for providing entitlements or incentives for the self-employed to make better provision for sickness, training and retirement. This was something I hinted at in my report and would, among other benefits, largely remove the incentives for bogus self-employment.
Thinking back to the RSA’s second criterion for crisis to lead to change, are there reasons to believe the demand for better work may have been increased by the pandemic experience?
The nation has relied on key workers, many of whom work in low-paid, low-status sectors such as social care, distribution and security. Few people now would shrug their shoulders at poor pay and conditions on the grounds that all economies need dead end jobs and that some people are only fit for them. We have been reminded of the gap between social value and market value. We relied on the fortitude of social care workers, delivery drivers and supermarket workers: management consultants not so much.
Models of working have been affected in different ways. The organisations that seemed to cope best with the crisis were those that engaged their staff openly and authentically. Businesses now reliant on government loans will have to be even more careful that their business practices are acceptable to the public.
The experience of home working has disrupted traditional models of hierarchy and control as organisations have thought harder about the circumstances and wellbeing of staff. Even the most self-important manager becomes more human when their presentation is disrupted by small children or family pets.
All this suggests greater momentum behind good work. But there is one massive countervailing force; the re-emergence of large-scale mass unemployment. No one knows how long it will take to get the economy back even close to where it was in February. Even if demand and activity do pick up, will pandemic-induced cyclical unemployment give way to structural dislocation as the lingering of this virus, or the fear of others, accelerates long-predicted automation? As Adair Turner says, “robots don’t get sick”. Remember how hard it was to get a Labour government interested in good work when unemployment was a priority. It will not be only ministers and Treasury officials who will argue that a trade-off between more jobs and good jobs should tilt toward the former. Cash strapped, indebted, individuals will grab any work they can and the updated monthly unemployment figures will once again be a major news story.
Over the next few weeks and months the focus of policy and public attention will likely shift from health protection to economic recovery. This could be an important time for the prospects of better work. So, what case do we need to make?
First, we need to reject the explicit — or more insidiously, implicit — suggestion of a necessary trade-off between more jobs and good jobs. If we need to reflate the economy, we want people with money to spend and the job security to spend it. Abandoning minimum wage increases or encouraging more precarious employment will not help. The economic goal should be to make workers more productive not simply cheaper.
As people go back to work there is an opportunity to decide to do things differently. More flexible forms of work can be sustained. Roles and tasks could be redesigned with the goal of every job being a learning job. We can build on good practice to create new norms about employee representation and voice. Government could encourage whole sectors — social care being the most obvious — to make an industry-wide commitment to improve working lives.
We need also to widen the good work agenda, as the RSA does in its new social contract report (released 10 June). From tax policy to welfare systems, from the use of data and surveillance to new organisational and governance forms we need to be shaping the wider system, which governs work and people’s experience of it.
Perhaps we will see a second spike of the virus and some things may be changed forever, but I am starting to hear the fear expressed that, despite the courage, generosity and ingenuity people have shown in the crisis, things will simply revert to how they were, albeit with a battered economy. Will another crisis go to waste? So maybe it is time too for some idealism. This desperation for deep change can be seen in the international anti-racist mobilisation of the last few days.
Let me return to the aspiration on page one of my Good Work report; that every job be fair and decent with scope for development and fulfilment. Despite the many failings of our leaders, over the last two or three months the world has seen one of the greatest demonstrations of solidarity the world has ever seen. Hundreds of millions of people have turned their lives upside down to protect not just themselves, but their fellow citizens. With the climate emergency in mind, we should not forget that when we work together anything is possible.
For what we have done together we deserve a reward. What might it be; a holiday, a new car, or maybe something more long-lasting? Perhaps this crisis will further discredit the mean-minded and mythical image of human nature encoded in neo-liberal ideology. We are not merely self-interested, utility maximising individuals. As much as we are tempted by riches, status and power, we crave security, togetherness, respect, a sense of personal and common purpose. This is what life makes life worth living. It is also what makes a job worth doing.
The pursuit of human progress needs a golden thread to guide and inspire. Why can’t all work be good work?
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Matthew Taylor is the Chief Executive of the RSA.
