- Conference
- 2021 Virtual Special Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 6 April 2021
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that older people make up a growing proportion of the population, and so make an increasing contribution to society. They are our members, volunteers, taxpayers and carers. They have also been the most at risk during the Covid-19 pandemic, sometimes risking their own health to deliver urgent public services.
Over recent decades there has been a significant increase in the number of older workers, with over 50s now making up nearly a third (31%) of the entire UK workforce. By 2022 the number of people in the workforce aged 50 to state pension age will have risen to 13.8 million and the number aged 16-49 will have reduced by 700,000. Poor pension provision has meant that an increasing number of pension-age people are staying in work longer.
It�s clear that as society ages, so too does the workforce. Older workers can bring institutional knowledge and perspective, social maturity and stability, and can pass on critical knowledge or business relationships to younger workers. An Age UK study showed that older workers are as productive and willing to work as flexibly as their younger counterparts and far from the scare stories that older workers crowd out younger workers. Contrary to popular myth, the evidence shows that keeping older people in work improves employment prospects for younger generations and has in some cases even increased their wages.
While age brings experience, it can also bring several challenges, and many people worry about their ability to work later in life. Many older workers report feeling undervalued and not respected by managers and their co-workers.
Conference notes with concern that outdated stereotypes, unconscious bias and age discrimination all contribute to preventing older people from staying in or returning to work. And all of this means is that age is one of the major challenges that hinders successful job search. Other challenges include low skills, lack of confidence, inadequate up to date qualifications, long-term health conditions, disabilities and the difficulty of combining work with caring.
UNISON�s victory in forcing the government to withdraw its unjustified exit payment cap and associated changes to exit payments is to be welcomed, but the government�s proposals in this area demonstrate that we must be wary of future similar attacks on older workers and the future pensions of all of our members.
Around half of older workers leave the labour market prematurely – often because of a lack of support from their employer. In a survey of 500 UK employers it found that just one in five employers (20%) have faced challenges with managing age-diversity at work. Only a third (33%) of employers said they provide support, training or guidance for managers on managing age diversity.
It is not unreasonable, and in some instances, it is a legal requirement, for employers to support older workers by offering altered working arrangements and/or development opportunities. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), employers need to consider carrying out risk assessments routinely, not just when an employee reaches a certain age; making adjustments on the basis of individual and business needs, not age; modifying tasks to help people stay in work longer; and allowing staff to change work hours and content: and assessing the activities involved in jobs and modifying workplace design if necessary. Adjustments to workplace design should take account of all genders and their differing requirements as they grow older.
The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the fact that older workers often need a different approach from employers. Older people were more likely than younger people to be affected by Covid-19 and yet without its older workers, local government would have been completely unable to provide the vital services it did throughout the pandemic, supporting our communities and keeping us safe.
This highlights the importance of working with local government employers to ensure they adopt and improve policy and practice, tackle age bias and create an age-friendly workplace culture to ensure that people can work for as long as they want to. Age friendly policies such as flexible working, phased retirement, family care leave and even gap breaks can facilitate a new type of retirement, where people cut down rather than suddenly stop working, where health and wellbeing policies take account of older workers� needs (including support for women through the menopause) and where employers enable staff to combine work with caring responsibilities. Without all of this, more and more of our members will face worse working lives as they age.
Conference calls upon the Local Government Service Group Executive to:
1)Raise awareness amongst local government branches about the challenges and opportunities for our members working longer and what the legal responsibilities are on employers;
2)Ask local government branches to provide examples of existing age friendly policies and practices on supporting older workers in their workplaces;
3)Produce and promote guidance for local government branches to use when representing and negotiating on behalf of older members and include other useful information and UNISON resources;
4)Work with regions, branches and members of the service group sector committees to ensure that local government employers meet their responsibilities in supporting the older workers in a fair and non-discriminatory manner;
5)Work with the NEC and other service groups to continue to campaign to safeguard and improve equality and employment rights for older workers.