Women at work are main election battleground

A TUC analysis of the main party manifestos, published on the Mayday bank holiday, shows that women at work have the most to gain or lose from who wins the election, and that an unintended consequence of Conservative proposals may well be an extension of the claims industry that Conservatives see as part of the compensation culture that they stridently oppose.

Key Labour proposals to extend rights at work will mainly benefit women. Stopping employers including bank holidays in the four weeks minimum paid holiday provided by EU rules will benefit 1.4 million full-time workers and 1.5 million part-time - 2.9 million altogether - of whom the majority will be women, according to research by the Low Pay Commission included in the TUCís analysis íWhat about the workersí.

Women will also be the main beneficiaries of Labourís proposed increases in the minimum wage - in excess of the average rise in earnings. The planned 4.1 per cent increase in 2005 will benefit 1.2 million workers and 1.3 million will gain from the 5.9 per cent increase in 2006 - again a big majority will be women. The Low Pay Commission estimate that two thirds of gainers from the last rise were women and half of all gainers were part time women workers.

Increases in maternity leave and Labourís promises to extend child care will also benefit women at work.

In contrast Conservative plans will reduce rights at work, and the main losers will be women. The key Conservative proposal is to opt out of the EU Social Chapter. Measures which either mainly affect women, or have been mainly used by them, that have come through the social chapter include:

7 million part-time workers have gained protection against discrimination 4 million parents have gained the right to take unpaid parental leave Everyone with a caring responsibility has the right to take unpaid emergency leave

Changes in the burden of proof in equality cases have simplified and made it easier to prove discrimination.
Other Social Chapter measures include rights to information and consultation recently introduced, and protection for employees who have been employed on successive short term contracts.

A surprising conclusion from the TUC study is that the Conservative proposal to introduce costs into Employment Tribunals will, as the party no doubt intends, deter employees from taking cases in the short term, but in the longer term would encourage claims farms to extend their operations to employment tribunals thus increasing what the Conservatives have called ícompensation cultureí to employment relations. At present most cases in employment tribunals do not involve the award of costs - a regime designed to keep cases informal and deter employers and applicants from using expensive legal representation. The awards of costs will for the first time make encouraging wronged employees to take cases a business model.

While unions and official studies have shown that much of the supposed rise in ícompensation cultureí is a myth, many people have complained of the ambulance chasing firms that make unrealistic claims to achieve large awards from personal injury cases.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: No one will be very surprised that Labour offers a better deal for people at work, while the Conservatives will reduce rights. But it is striking that the battleground issues will overwhelmingly affect women at work - particularly the low paid.

Many say there is little or no difference between the parties, but this analysis shows that millions of low paid women workers stand to gain or lose from the outcome of this election.

Conservative plans to award costs in routine Tribunal cases is clearly designed to deter employees from bring cases, but they may have exactly the opposite effect when the day time TV adverts from the claims industry start.