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A New Deal for Workers: the Institute of Employment Rights on Covid and our rights
Prof K D Ewing and Lord John Hendy QC say the pandemic has strengthened the case for an overhaul of workplace rights

Before Covid, a team of experts set out, for the Institute of Employment Rights (IER), a transformative programme for future work relations in Britain. The aim? To improve the poor working conditions prevalent in this country pre-Covid, since exposed and made worse by the pandemic.  

Pre-Covid conditions

  • Average wages had not increased in real terms for 12 years; 
  • 5.1 million people earned less than the real living wage (£9.30 per hour); 
  • 8.3 million people in working households lived in poverty; 
  • 1 million workers were on zero-hours contracts; 
  • 3.6 million workers were in insecure work; 
  • 75 per cent of workers were on terms and conditions determined unilaterally by employers.

 Covid impact 

  • Tens of thousands of workers have contracted Covid at work and thousands have died from it;
  • Those in insecure work had twice the Covid death rate and 17 occupations were identified as being particularly at risk;
  • Employers failed to take the precautions required by long-standing laws and the Health and Safety Executive failed to enforce those laws;
  • Statutory sick pay (SSP) of £96 per week meant self-isolation was impossible for many while two million workers earn less that the threshold to qualify even for SSP;
  • A million people have lost their jobs because of Covid and at least a further 1m are likely to do so;
  • Covid and the recession hit workers unequally, often with those doing the most essential work for society suffering the highest levels of infection and death, the lowest rates of pay, the greatest job losses and the lowest proportion entitled to financial compensation; 
  • Nearly one in 10 workers (9 per cent) have had to accept reductions in pay and conditions by use of fire and rehire;
  • The real value of average earnings fell by 0.9 per cent between April 2019 and April 2020;
  • Workers have been excluded from all the key decisions which affect them: furlough, redundancies, pay cuts, changes to conditions and, indirectly, in relation to national economic policy.
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