As of the 19th of March, South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture’s casual workers have been told there’s no more work for them within leisure and culture and those on low hour contracts will have their hours drastically cut as many of them work far beyond their contracted hours. This will mean we may have to go for anywhere up to twelve weeks with no pay, meaning many of us won’t be able to pay our unavoidable bills such as rent and food. This is a disgrace. It shows that the trust shows little to no regard for their staff, who often work long shifts for the benefit of their centre. We have been told that we can work on a casual basis for the NHS and social care during this time, provided we replied to an email within a time frame that was less than a day, however we have not been informed as to whether those with underlying health conditions will be able to carry out this work or what will happen to those who miss the deadline. While we would be more than happy to help our communities in this way, we will be switching us from one precarious situation to another. We have not been told how often we will be able to work, nor whether we will have to pay for any additional travel ourselves. On top of this not all casual staff received the email notifying them of the opportunity to support our NHS.

Thousands of young people every year work for months on end for no pay to gain some work experience to help get a job. Many others – people from poorer backgrounds - lose out because they can’t afford to live without a wage and find themselves blocked from getting the experience needed for good entry-level jobs. . Now MP Alex Cunningham is bidding to change all that and the Second Reading of his Unpaid Work Experience Bill will take place on 27th March. The Bill would ban unpaid work experience that lasts longer than four weeks. The Bill doesn’t ban work experience – it just stops employers getting away with not paying their staff. In 2018 it was found that the average unpaid internship costs the person about £1100 in London just to live – meaning they are essentially paying for getting experience that most people cannot afford. If we are to make the race fair, we need to ensure that everybody starts from the same starting position. Sign the petition now to show your support for the Bill that ensures work opportunities aren’t open just to those who can afford to work for free.

We believe Bexley refuse workers and street cleaners deserve a fair wage for a fair day’s work. The London Living Wage is £10.75 an hour, but these workers are paid just £8.90 to £9.50 an hour. That’s up to £3,300 a year less than the recommended amount. Furthermore, many workers are on zero hour contracts and aren’t being paid sick pay. Serco, Bexley Council and Peter Craske, the Councillor in charge of public spaces have a responsibility to its 180 underpaid employees to provide a wage that lets people live, work and provide for their families in London. In Greenwich, refuse workers and street cleansers are paid £13.50 an hour and get paid up to £8,300 more annually to do exactly the same work. Why does Bexley Council and Peter Craske believe our workers’ time and efforts aren’t worth as much as our neighbouring borough? Serco made profits of £102.5 million in 2019 and increased their profits by over 20% from 2018. Serco has profited from underpaying and overworking its staff and Bexley Council has allowed this to happen. Refuse workers and street cleansers provide a valuable service for our borough and it’s about time they were paid a fair wage.

Too many companies are breaking the law by not paying hard working staff the legal minimum wage - and they’re getting away with it. The people who are being short changed the most are those who can least afford it - carers looking after the elderly, people in hospitality working back breaking 12 hour shifts. HMRC is in charge of investigating companies for paying below minimum wage but catch only a small number of the companies paying illegal wages. When companies are caught, they pay on average only 90% of the wages they owe - making it cheaper to break the law than pay workers properly. HMRC can fine dodgy companies up to 200% of the lost wages, but they rarely do. Bigger fines would make businesses much less likely to break the law and make sure fewer workers are paid illegally low wages.

Nursing is a degree-entry profession. Registration with the NMC is paid for and renewed annually with regular reviews and revalidation. There are requirements to satisfy continuing professional development and a minimum of practice hours. Nurses are subject to a Code of Practice and can be struck off the register if found unfit to practise. In the recent General Election, a parliamentary candidate (Ian Levy, Conservative, Blyth Valley) claimed to be a nurse, whereas he was a mental health health care assistant. Some voters may have assumed that he had specific knowledge or expertise and this may have also extended to his credibility. Nurses are regarded by the public as one of the most trusted and reliable professions. He was duly elected. The skills and experience of healthcare assistants and the wider nursing family are vital to healthcare provision; it would be impossible to provide a service without them. This petition in no way denigrates their role or ability - it merely seeks to provide a legal limitation on the use of the term 'Nurse.' The Nurses Registration Act 1919 established a register of nurses and the foundation of nursing training, but did not protect the designation. The term 'registered nurse' is protected, but is ungainly and rarely used in everyday writing or speech. The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife”, in honour of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale. It is time to acknowledge the impact of the title Nurse by protecting it.

At the moment Iceland opens it's doors for business on Boxing Day. This means that staff who have been working long and busy hours in the build up to Christmas have very little time to spend with family and friends. Budget supermarket, Audi have just announced that all their stores will remain closed on Boxing Day and all staff will be paid. No food shop needs to be open on Boxing day! People buy enough food to last them over Christmas. We work so hard in the lead up to Christmas! Please let us have 2 days with our family! Spending Christmas with loved ones is much more important than making profits.

Imagine you’re employed by an outsourcing giant who paid their shareholders more money in the last five years than you could dream of, while you struggle to make ends meet. You clean buildings owned by Network Rail, a publicly owned company, and you learn that your colleagues who clean their stations will now get the Living Wage, but you won’t, even though some them work in the same building as you. You raise this with your manager, who just laughs at you. This is not just a story, this is happening to hard-working cleaning staff working for our railways now. In October this year, RMT cleaners who work for outsourcing giant Mitie and clean Network Rail stations won the Real Living Wage after a massive national campaign involving a 38 Degrees petition signed by 82,000 people and motions in the Westminster and Scottish parliaments. You’d think that Mitie and Network Rail would have got the point and made sure that they pay the Real living Wage to all their staff. Yet scandalously, both Mitie and Network Rail are still exploiting low paid cleaners. Cleaners employed by Mitie but working on Network Rail’s Estates contract, cleaning administrative buildings, maintenance depots and control centres are still being paid poverty wages. Some of them work in the same buildings as colleagues who are now being paid the Living Wage and our members report managers laughing at them for thinking they should be paid the same. This is outrageous. Mitie is a massive company which made £33 million in profit in just the last six months and has passed on £177 million to its shareholders in the last five years. Its CEO Phil Bentley took home £2.2 million last year. It would take one of Phil’s cleaners 176 years work to earn the same amount as he made in 12 months. Network Rail know that they’re in the wrong and say they’re reviewing their contracts, but that’s not good enough. Network Rail and Mitie need to fix this now. EVERYONE who works for Network Rail through a contract with Mitie should be paid at least the Living Wage, now.

Clothing giant Next currently opens it's stores on Boxing Day to launch it's winter sale. This means that staff who have been working long and busy hours in the build up to Christmas have very little time to spend with family and friends. The Next sale begins at 6am on Boxing Day which means staff shifts can start from as early as 5am! Budget retailer, Home Bargains have just announced that all their stores will remain closed on Boxing Day and all staff will be paid. If Home Bargains can do it, why can't Next. Allowing hard working members of staff to spend time with loved ones over Christmas is so much more important than making profits.

Since ex-Fremantle care workers transferred into the Barnet Group this year, The Barnet Group now has a large number of employees paid below the London Living Wage (£10.55/ hour). This means that the skilled caring work done by staff is paid at rates lower than those paid to cleaners working in the Council buildings. It is absolutely right that cleaners are paid the London Living Wage but care workers are no less deserving. The London Living Wage is identified as the hourly rate of pay needed to more realistically cover the real cost of living. For more information see here: https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/issues/work/london-living-wage/

Employers up and down the country are abusing current flexible working arrangements to make life impossible for hard-working people. Over 1.7 million people across the country are very anxious about their hours changing unexpectedly and without enough warning. Shifts are often cancelled at the last-minute leaving families short of cash for things like food or bills. And with hours changing week to week it can be impossible to budget and plan ahead. Right now flexibly working just isn't working. It's time the government stepped up and helped protect workers by ensuring flexible working practices work for workers, not just employers.

It is well known that the UK is lagging behind other major European countries in the number of Public Holidays it observes every year. I am calling for a modest increase in the number of Public (Bank) Holidays to give us 2 extra such days to coincide with the February and October school Half-Term weeks. This would be of enormous benefit to our overworked and underpaid workforce, especially those with children of school age, who need more Public Holidays ( with pay ) to eke out their often meagre annual leave entitlements during school holidays. The government frequently plays the 'hard-working families' card; now is it's chance to 'put it's money where it's mouth is'!

Nobody working for the Premier League should be struggling to make ends meet. I’ve started this petition because, as a cleaner at a football stadium I've seen first hand the impact that being trapped in in-work poverty has had on my colleagues and their families. Clubs should follow the example of Premier League clubs like Everton, Chelsea, West Ham, Liverpool and Crystal Palace that are already proud accredited Living Wage employers. Brighton, have confirmed that they pay the living wage to both employees and contractors, but have not yet obtained accreditation from the LWF. Although some clubs may already pay their employees the real Living Wage, this benefit often does not extend to contractors.The Living Wage Foundation is the only way for employers to independently certify that both their directly employed and, crucially, their contracted staff are being paid enough to meet the cost of living. Smaller clubs like Luton Town FC and Dulwich Hamlet FC are accredited real Living Wage employers - if they can do it, so can all of the Premier League!