Sir Keir Starmer has rejected civil servants’ calls for for a four-day working week, hours after a minister stated: “We’re not living in the 1970s.”
Civil servants who’re members of the PCS union have been campaigning for a four-day working week and on Wednesday launched analysis they stated might save the federal government £21.4m a 12 months in a single division.
Nevertheless, Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesman stated it’s “not government policy to support a four-day working week”.
“The civil service is working to deliver for working people day in, day out,” he added.
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The PCS referred to as the federal government’s response “knee-jerk” and “disappointing”, and stated ministers have been being close-minded.
Pensions minister Emma Reynolds was extra forthright in her response than Quantity 10, as she merely stated civil servants “won’t get one”, in reference to a four-day week.
Requested why not, she instructed Instances Radio: “Because we’re not living in the 1970s.”
Underneath Edward Heath’s Conservative authorities in 1973-1974, a three-day week was launched to preserve electrical energy amid main strikes involving coal miners and railway employees.
Ms Reynolds added that she didn’t consider a four-day week for Division for Setting, Meals and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) workers would save £21.4m a 12 months.
PCS basic secretary Fran Heathcote stated: “The federal government’s knee-jerk response is disappointing, particularly as they ignore the proof in entrance of them {that a} four-day week can result in actual beneficial properties, together with monetary financial savings, for employers and employees.
“Enlightened companies are more and more adopting the four-day-week for his or her workers as a result of can see the clear advantages.
“Ministers should not close their minds just because the right-wing press has.”
Following Ms Reynolds’ Nineteen Seventies remark, Ms Heathcote agreed we aren’t residing within the Nineteen Seventies however within the 2020s.
“The world of work has changed and more progressive employers are looking at different ways of working,” she instructed Instances Radio.
Farmers reacted badly to the PCS DEFRA analysis after the federal government introduced they might not be exempt from all inheritance tax.
Steve Ridsdale, chairman of the British Farming Union, stated he was annoyed civil servants have been asking for a four-day week “when asking us to work our socks off to pay a tax bill”.
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The PCS examine, which noticed greater than 1,200 DEFRA workers interviewed, estimated workers turnover would scale back yearly by 57% in the event that they labored a four-day week, releasing up £21.4m a 12 months, which might rent an extra 2,345 staff.
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It stated the sum is roughly equal to the division’s flood defence price range for Northumbria, an space at excessive threat of flooding.
The examine discovered illness absence might drop by 65%.
In February, it was revealed many of the UK firms that took half on the planet’s largest-ever four-day working week trial had made the coverage everlasting.
Of the 61 organisations that took half within the six-month pilot in 2022, 54 (89%) have been nonetheless working the coverage a 12 months later.
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