If you’re a member of parliament who doesn’t serve in government, the opportunity to introduce your own legislation is extraordinarily slim.
I have listened with envy to my American counterparts when they talk of regularly introducing legislation to improve the lives of their constituents.
Though the American system is far from perfect – arguably imperfect by design – it is a reminder that to those of us who serve in the so-called Mother of Parliaments that other ways of doing politics are available.
Five years ago, I was lucky enough to be selected in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills - one of the vanishingly small opportunities that an MP can have to introduce their own legislation to parliament.
I brought forward legislation that would ban the practice of unpaid work trials: a soul-destroying exploitative anachronism of the modern labour market.
We’ve all known someone who has spent hours upon hours applying for job after job, often being asked to work for a trial period for which the applicant isn’t paid. In some of these cases an unpaid trial may at first seem minor: a couple of hours behind the bar, or on the café floor, to show what you’re made of. But that doesn’t make it right.
My attention was first drawn to this issue when I heard of someone who was asked to work a 40-hour trial period over five days. She wasn’t to be paid for a single hour of her work, and at the end of the period she wasn’t even guaranteed a job. This is more common than you might think. And today, as the country toils with the daily grind of the cost-of-living crisis, it is concerning to hear from trade unions that unpaid trials are on the rise again, often taking advantage of those already struggling and who need support the most.
To this day we still do not know how many people are being asked to complete unpaid trials, the number of hours of unpaid labour carried out each year as part of trial shifts, and their true cost - though it is estimated that unpaid trial shifts contribute to around £3billion in missing wages annually.
The UK Government has confirmed that unpaid working time - which can include unpaid trial shifts - were a factor in 29% of cases when 208 employers were named for failing to pay £1.2m to around 12,000 workers and ordered to pay nearly £2m in penalties.These figures are eyewatering and torch the government’s claims that their flimsy unpaid trial guidance – which was supposed to placate me when I was bringing forward legislation - is enough.
Legislation, the government claimed, simply was not needed. This claim was torched once again when, just three months ago, a judge stated in an employment tribunal that “legislation does not give explicit guidance as to how long these [unpaid trials] may last”.
Guidance remains too vague, and the law too grey for there to be effective action taken to fully stamp out unpaid trials. If people are going to be offered a trial period where they apply their skills in the hope of securing permanent work, then the law should clearly state that they should be paid fairly and properly. No loopholes. No grey areas.
Public opinion is firmly of this view too. Polling has shown that 65% of UK citizens believe that unpaid work trials are unfair, and a petition to the House of Commons launched a few years ago by Glasgow-based student Ellen Reynolds, who herself was made to work a free shift for which she had to purchase a work uniform, gained over10,000 signatures.
I was extremely disappointed the government prevented parliament from even having a vote on the bill, but half a decade on this practice still plagues people looking for honest and decent work.
Parliament needs to do its job. We need to tighten legislation to end exploitative, unpaidtrial shifts for workers. Five years on I’ll continue to draw attention to this grotesqueworking practice and campaign for it to be consigned to history.
After all, a fair day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay.
Stewart McDonald is the SNP MP for Glasgow South