Friday 24 February 2006 is Work Your Proper Hours Day

The TUC’s award-winning ’Work Your Proper Hours Day’ takes place on Friday 24 February next year. This is when the TUC estimates that people who do unpaid overtime will stop working for free in 2006 and start to get paid. On that day the TUC is urging people who do unpaid overtime to take a proper lunch, and arrive and leave work on time.

This should remind Britain’s employers just how much they depend on the goodwill and voluntary extra work of their staff, the TUC says. Indeed the TUC is urging Britain’s bosses to take their staff out for lunch, coffee or cocktails on ’Work Your Proper Hours Day’ to say thank you for their hard work and commitment.

Bosses should put this day in their calendar and make plans to say thanks to their hard-working staff, said TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber, ’Work Your Proper Hours Day’ is a light-hearted way to raise the problem of long hours working in the UK. Most employees like their job and care about their work, it’s one of the reasons they put in unpaid extra time. This year we will be providing practical advice on how employers and employees can work smarter to cut their hours and improve the quality of their work.

’Work Your Proper Hours Day’ 2005 recently won the PR Week industry award for the best research based campaign, for more information visit: www.prweek.com/uk/events/botn/section/21772

The TUC has used the official Labour Force Survey, which measures unpaid overtime, to work out when ’Work Your Proper Hours Day’ will fall.