Union head responds angrily to Liz Truss’s claim UK workers lack ‘graft’

Read More

The unions’ leader has responded with anger to Liz Truss’s comments that British workers needed “more graft” and lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), criticised the Tory leadership frontrunner for “lecturing” people to work harder while many were struggling to make ends meet.

Research carried out by the TUC in 2019 found that UK workers put in the longest hours in the EU – with the average full-time worker in Britain clocking in nearly two hours more than the EU average, the equivalent to an extra two-and-a-half weeks a year.

In a recording leaked to the Guardian, Truss had also risked pitting Londoners against the rest of the country by attempting to explain the difference between the capital and other regions in the UK.

Truss, who at the time of the comments was number two at the Treasury, suggested the disparity was “partly a mindset or attitude thing” and that there seemed little desire to change the working culture so that the UK could become more prosperous.

However, O’Grady told the Guardian: “British workers put in the longest working hours in Europe. Yet millions are still struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. Working people need a decent pay rise – not lectures on how to work harder.

“Rather than insulting workers, her government should be putting in some ‘hard graft’ to protect families from soaring bills and falling real wages.”

London had the highest productivity level of any UK region in 2020, with output per hour more than 50% higher than the median, according to the Office for National Statistics.

However, this is widely believed to be the result of large multinationals being based in the capital, higher engagement with research and development, the size of firms and the level of exports, and the transport infrastructure.

Truss’s remarks about the productivity of workers outside London could be particularly damaging as earlier this month she was forced to make a U-turn on plans to cut civil service pay outside the capital after a furious outcry from Conservative MPs.

Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, tweeted: “Suffice to say if the bookies favourite to be the next PM genuinely believed that mindset [and] attitude can explain the north south divide then she was very much mistaken.”

He later told Times Radio: “I don’t think that actually the problem in the UK is significantly to do with people not applying themselves, if anything actually, working too many hours, and not achieving very much in terms of output is a much bigger problem in the UK.”

Many Britons also put in extra hours but don’t get rewarded, with TUC analysis showing that employers claimed ?27bn of free labour last year because of workers doing unpaid overtime.

However Cabinet Office minister Kit Malthouse supported Truss’s remarks, telling Nick Ferrari on LBC that workers needed to be encouraged to work harder. He said: “I think there are lots of people in the British economy work[ing] extremely hard. But I have to tell you, every single school report I ever had Nick said, ‘could try harder’. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with encouraging people to work as hard as they possibly can.”

Earlier, former health secretary Sajid Javid distanced himself from Truss’s comments, saying he did not know the context in which they had been made, but he thought British workers were the most hardworking in the world.

Javid, who has backed Truss to be the next prime minister, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Well, I know what you’re referring to, but I don’t know the context in that comment when it was made.”

He added: “What I do recognise and I’ve long recognised as business secretary, as chancellor, in all the jobs I’ve had in government, is that governments need to do even more to improve our productivity.

“Now, when it comes to British workers, they’re the most hardworking in the world.”

In the recording, made while Truss was the chief secretary to the Treasury, a role she held from 2017 to 2019, she said: “If you look at productivity, it’s very, very different in London from the rest of the country. But basically … this has been a historical fact for decades. Essentially, it’s partly a mindset and attitude thing, I think. It’s working culture, basically. If you go to China it’s quite different, I can assure you.”

She said there was a “fundamental issue of British working culture”, and that if the UK wanted to be “richer and more prosperous” then that would need to change.

“There’s a slight thing in Britain about wanting the easy answers,” she said. “That’s my reflection on the election and what’s gone before it, and the referendum – we say it’s all Europe that’s causing these huge problems … it’s all these migrants causing these problems. But actually what needs to happen is more … more graft. It’s not a popular message.

When asked about the comments at a leadership hustings event in Perth on Tuesday evening, Truss maintained that she still thought British workers could be more productive.

She said: “I don’t know what you’re quoting there [but] what we need in this country is more productivity and we need more economic growth.”

Labour has criticised Truss’s comments in the recording. The shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said: “With wages shrinking thanks to Tory failure to bring inflation under control and years of lacklustre growth, it’s grossly offensive for Liz Truss to effectively brand British workers lazy.”