By Josephine Grahl, UNISON national young members’ officer
In November, we mark TUC Young Workers month – a time for highlighting the contributions of young workers within the trade union movement, but also for publicising the issues that young people face in the workplace and beyond.
UNISON’s young members launched a campaign this summer called Young Members’ Mental Health Matters! It aims to do a number of things – first of all, to highlight the impact of mental health in the workplace, for all workers but above all for younger people.
We have always known that mental health is a big issue for young workers, but when we did a survey of UNISON’s young members in 2022, we were shocked at the results.
Over 80% of young members told us that they had experienced a mental health problem in the last year. Of those, around 20% said their mental health problems were caused by work, and around 60% said that work affected their mental health negatively.
As one young member said: “Living paycheque to paycheque takes its mental toll, on top of the inevitable burnout of being overworked and isolated from my colleagues as a lone worker. Combined with unsociable hours, this is a recipe for creating mental health problems.”
Work is a big part of most people’s lives and it’s easy to see how poor management, workloads, bullying and discrimination can cause or worsen mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.
It’s also well documented that young workers are more likely to be low paid, or in short-term, precarious or zero-hours jobs – all of which put pressure on mental health and make it more difficult to cope.
Young workers are also at the sharp edge of the cost of living crisis – research by UK Youth showed that 54% of the young people they surveyed said that their mental health has been negatively affected by the cost of living.
But we don’t just want to highlight the problems – we also want to focus on the positive things that UNISON does to improve mental health at work.
Of course, our core work of bargaining for better pay and conditions, secure and sustainable jobs contributes to making work better and addressing the cost of living crisis. But there are other things that UNISON does which can improve the workplace.
Our campaign aims focusses on some of these. For example, UNISON reps can support people in the workplace who are having a tough time – whether they might need some temporary support or help in negotiating reasonable adjustments for a longer-term mental health condition that qualifies as a disability. Our health and safety reps also look at hazards to mental health, such as heavy workloads and stressful working environments.
But other changes to the workplace can also make a big difference and UNISON reps across the country can bargain for small changes which make a big difference.
Like the young members’ officer in Yorkshire who helped to negotiate a new ‘wellbeing day’ for all staff, giving them the flexibility to take a day off if they’re having a bad day without having to call in sick or use their annual leave. Not only has there been 100% take up of this new policy, but the employer also says that the number of sickness procedures that they have to put staff through has reduced.
As part of their campaign, UNISON’s national young members forum is also calling for a right to disconnect – that is, a right not to take work-related calls and messages outside of working hours. We’re pleased that the new Labour government has committed to this, but it’s also something that branches can negotiate locally, employer by employer.
So take a look at our campaign resources, and think about marking TUC Young Workers month by starting a conversation in your branch about what you could do to make your workplaces more mentally healthy – not just for young workers, but for everyone.
