NEWS RELEASE
23 February 2006 Embargo: 00.01hrs Friday 24 February 2006
Employees in Scotland do £1.7 billion unpaid overtime a year
On Work Your Proper Hours Day (Friday), TUC research shows that the 408,000 employees in Scotland who do unpaid overtime would earn on average an extra £4,141 a year if they were paid for it.
Today's Work Your Proper Hours Day is when the average UK employee who does unpaid overtime would start to get paid if they did all their unpaid work at the start of the year. The Scottish TUC is urging staff to take a stand by taking a proper lunch break and leaving work on time tomorrow, and calling on Scotland's bosses to say thank you for the extra hours put in by their staff.
It is still not too late for Scotland's employees who do unpaid overtime to send their manager an anonymous bossagram email from the campaign website www.workyourproperhoursday.com politely asking them to join the fun and recognise the average six hours 48 minutes of unpaid overtime done across Scotland.
They can also download posters, work out the value of their own unpaid overtime, get tips on reducing their own working time, and play and pass on the work your proper hours game.
STUC Deputy General Secretary Grahame Smith said: "Work Your Proper Hours Day is a fun way of making the serious point that we work the longest hours in Europe and are the most likely to do unpaid overtime. We are not calling on Scots to become a nation of clock-watchers, or to refuse to help out when there's a crisis or unexpected rush. But we are saying that people in Scotland should use Work Your Proper Hours Day to not just have a bit of fun, but ask serious questions about how they can reduce long hours working."
Across the UK senior managers have overtaken teachers to leap to the top of the 2006 unpaid overtime league table published by the TUC on Work Your Proper Hours Day.
Top managers who do unpaid hours put in on average an extra 12 hours of unpaid work each week - an increase of more than two hours over the 2005 league table. If they did all their unpaid overtime at the start of the year they would not get paid until March 24, and if paid for their extra hours would be £24,000 a year better off.
Teaching professionals have been pushed back to second place, although