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Unpaid overtime is worth £28bn
From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Thursday 21st Mar 2002.
The value of unpaid overtime has risen to £28 billion a year after a huge increase in the number of workers putting in extra hours for no pay, says the TUC.
More than 5.5 million workers are doing more than their contracted hours, an increase of 250,000 over the past year, according to research carried out for the organisation.
It said employees were averaging seven hours unpaid overtime a week, worth more than £5,000 a year free labour to their employer.
The value of unpaid overtime has increased by £5 billion over the past year.
TUC general secretary John Monks said the amount being worked more than compensated employers for the exaggerated costs of making sure workers had decent standards of legal protection.
"Employer organisations are always whingeing about the costs of what they call red tape, yet you never hear any gratitude for the vast amounts of unpaid overtime their staff put in.
"The truth is that when employers talk about the benefits of flexible labour markets, they mean stripping away terms and conditions, as many are now doing with occupational pensions."
Women in professional jobs were most likely to work unpaid overtime, the research found.
Susan Anderson, director of human resources policy at the CBI, said: "Most of these people are professional workers who receive a salary to do a job.
"They do not expect overtime on top of this. People want to make their own decisions about working extra hours. They do not want to be told how long to work by the TUC or the Govern-ment."
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