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Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers

Paul is TUC Policy Officer dealing with working time and the minimum wage. He focuses on combating the long hours culture, campaigning for better laws on working time, and promoting collective bargaining and best practice.

He also focuses on influencing the Low Pay Commission and the Government, and works to promote better awareness and enforcement of the minimum wage.

  • Working Life

    Homeworking has been on the rise despite the economic crisis

    17th May 2013 — Filed under: Working Life

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    The number of people who work from home has continued to rise in recent years, increasing by 470,000 since 2007. In some ways this is rather surprising, since in a time of economic crisis we might have expected most employers simply to fear change  and stick to traditional ways of working.

    However, there are some strong pressures for change in this area, including the rise of information-based industrial sectors and a growing expectation amongst both younger people and the most senior employees that time and place of work matter less than getting the job done.

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  • Economics

    National Minimum Wage – increase more likely than freeze

    3rd April 2013 — Filed under: Economics, Labour market

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    There have been rumours that the Government may freeze the NMW this year. I find them very hard to credit. Whilst it is certain that some employers’ organisitions like the British Chambers of Commerce and the usual right-wing think thanks will have lobbied for a freeze, as they have done for a number of years, the politics and economics of such a course simply do not add up.

    The economics are that the UK is currently demand-deficient, and there is no credible evidence that the current rates are holding back job creation*, so freezing wages would make no sense at all. The politics are simply that the local election campaign is just about to begin, and any shrewd politicean would not think it wise to open the campaign with bad news. Therefore i expect an increase to be announced shortly.

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  • Working Life

    Anywhere Working Week

    21st March 2013 — Filed under: Working Life

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    Turning away from the budget for a minute, I am pleased to report  that we are currently in the middle of Anywhere Working Week.  This is therefore an excellent time to think about how the proper use of new technology and new forms of working can generate mutual benefits for employees and employers alike. The big question is “why on earth do we still travel into the office every day and have endless face-to-face meetings when computer and phone technology means that many of of could work from home, or from other locations?”

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  • Society & Welfare

    Raise a very tentative half a cheer for budget support for housing

    20th March 2013 — Filed under: Society & Welfare

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    There is an entrenched housing crisis in this country, so any attempt by government to address it must be worth at least one cheer. The budget includes some new initiatives on housing, but sadly the good ones seem to be quite small in comparison with what is needed, and further extension of the Right to Buy is simply counterproductive – perhaps the whole package is worth about half a cheer then. 

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  • Working Life

    Burnout bigger heart attack risk than smoking, says new research

    15th March 2013 — Filed under: Working Life

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    A new study published in the latest Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine finds that people suffering work-related burnout are even more likely to develop heart disease than smokers.

    People in the top 20% of the burnout scale are 79% more likely to develop heart disease, whilst all workers suffering from any degree of burnout are 40% more likely, the research found.

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  • Working Life

    Is the working time directive really as inflexible as ministers say?

    1st February 2013 — Filed under: Working Life

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    Ministers often say that the Working Time Dircetive is too inflexible. Before this debate gets red-hot again, let’s just pause to consider what happens when the country gets freezing cold.

    When there is significant snow disruption, which is pretty much every year in Scotland and the North of England, the government temporarily suspends the working time rules for some delivery drivers – so that fuel, oil and sometimes even groceries can get to the snow-bound parts of the UK.

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  • Working Life

    British men are working the longest hours in Europe

    18th January 2013 — Filed under: Working Life

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    A new study published today shows that full-time male workers in Britain work two hours per week longer than the European average. The long hours culture is still a problem for many workers in this country, despite the recent proliferation of part-time jobs.  The problem is that few employees can actually get the hours that they want. A recent TUC study showed that most part-time workers want more hours, but it is also still the case that many full-time workers want fewer hours.

    Despite a fall in the number of people working very long hours, 3 million employees still work more than 48 hours – around 1 in 8. Excessive working time is associated with the development of health problems like heart disease, diabetes, stress and depression. It can also lead to poor performance and absenteeism, and squeezes out desirable things like training and education, which are necessary for economic success.

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  • Working Life

    5 million staff paid less than living wage

    29th October 2012 — Filed under: Working Life

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    A new study commissioned by KPMG found that 4.8 million UK employees are paid less than the living wage, which is currently £8.30 in London and £7.20 throughout the rest of the UK.

    This is a timely report, as new targets are expected to be announced next Monday, at the start of the first ever Living Wage Week.

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  • Society & Welfare

    Policy Exchange on “expensive social housing” – reasons to be miserable.

    20th August 2012 — Filed under: Society & Welfare

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    The Policy Exchange report “Ending Expensive Social Tenancies” is in the news this morning.  The basic premise is that  ”selling expensive social housing as it becomes vacant could create the largest social house building programme since the 1970s. The sales would raise £4.5 billion annually which could be used to build 80,000-170,000 new social homes a year and create 160,000-340,000 jobs a year in the construction industry.”

    There is widespread concern that such a proposal would be a disaster, creating mono-cultural communities, making low paid employees travel further to work, and perhaps opening up local authorities to allegations of seeking electoral advantage – and most damningly, singularly failing to generate much in the way of new social housing.

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  • Labour market

    Managers working too many hours means we all suffer

    17th July 2012 — Filed under: Labour market, Working Life

    Paul Sellers Paul Sellers

    Bad work cultures are weakening British firms and adding to economic decline say bosses in new survey by the Chartered Management Institute. In particular, the amount of unpaid overtime has increased sharply over the last five years, the incidence of work-related stress and depression amongst managers is rising rapidly, and more managers feel that they have to come in when they are sick*.

    This is a dangerous state of affairs, since overwork often leads to mistakes and a general drop in quality as well as generating ill health and absence amongst key business personnel. Sneioar managers often need help to ensure that they take care of themselves properly and delegate work appropriately – it will certainly not be enough just to say “manager, manage thyself”.

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