Working Lives Research Institute
WLRI are research partners on a new UNISON project, the ‘Hidden Workforce’, exploring and assessing initiatives of the union to organise workers in contracted-out public services.
UNISON identifies the problem like this:
“As many as one in four public service workers – around 1.2 million – are employed by contractors. Many of these workers are vulnerable because they are afraid and can be easily exploited. Yet the contracted-out workforce is often unorganised, lacking the trade union representation it desperately needs.”
This project follows on from the successful work that WLRI did with UNISON on the Migrant Workers Participation project. This identified contracting out in the public sector as a key barrier to recruitment of migrant workers for UNISON.
Sian Moore, Leroi Henry, Leena Kumarappan and Max Watson are working alongside Greg Thomson and a team from UNISON. The aim of the project is to: highlight exploitation of hidden workers; focus on the organising challenge; identify barriers to support; show how UNISON organisers and activists can support hidden workers by:
Go to UNISON’s ‘Hidden Workforce’ page for more.