News

UNI Professionals and Managers’ (UNI P&M) group has launched its second Work-Life Management fortnight of action to challenge the long hours and short breaks culture that is being taken for granted in many workplaces around the world.

Not only is this unhealthy practice leading to millions of workers giving away an estimated 10-20 per cent of their salary in unpaid overtime every year, evidence also shows that poor work-life management can cause stress and ill-health, can wreck relationships at work and home, and can make it difficult to care for children, family and friends.

UNI P&M is calling on all affiliates to raise awareness of the need for better work-life management policies and practises by organising activities, getting involved in the two weeks of action from 7-20 October and negotiating fair.

The theme for this year’s fortnight of action is Achieve more with less stress. This connects the long hour’s culture to the impact of more technology in the workplace which has changed the way people work. In many instances technology, especially when it not managed, has facilitated the burden that workers face across the globe. A key finding of a survey of P&M workers in Hong Kong was that people felt they could not switch off, even while asleep or on holiday because of technology.

Use the resources on the specially design Work Life Management campaign website..This includes a step-by-step toolkit to guide you through the reasons why work-life management is a serious issue for workers and it highlights activities that unions can undertake to organise workers, model motions and clauses to negotiate policies. The toolkit also includes model articles, posters, and much more guidance on transforming theory into practice.

UNI has also designated 8 October as Work Your Proper Hours Day, and we are encouraging everyone to take a proper break and to go home on time.

Throughout these two weeks of action, UNI affiliates can help to change the rules of the game and ensure that all workers have access to decent work conditions by negotiating and implementing better work-life management policies and practices.

For more information and to share your case studies of good practice and details of the work-life management activities you are organising, please contact: pav.akhtar@uniglobalunion.org

Notes for Editors

UNI Global Union is running its second annual work-life management fortnight from 7-20 October. 2013 This year’s theme is: Achieve more with less stress. A free campaign pack with materials is available from the UNI blog page: http://blogs.uniglobalunion.org/wlmgt

You can also visit UNI Global Union’s website: www.uniglobalunion.org to learn more about its wider work for 20 million service sector workers in 150 countries.