Pay

Working Time Regulations: Why You Must Be Paid for Preparation Time

admin Legislation, Pay

For millions of UK workers, the day doesn’t start when they swipe a badge — it starts the moment they pull on a uniform, boot up a work system, or load a company van. If your employer requires you to perform tasks before your official shift, you need to know your rights under the working time regulations.


A recent government crackdown has made headlines by fining major retailers for failing to pay staff for this exact type of time. High Street giant Holland & Barrett was ordered to repay more than £153,000 to over 2,500 workers, proving that preparation time is legally considered work.

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The Great Wage Theft of 2025: UK Workers Forced to Hand Over £28.5 Billion in Free Labour

admin Pay

A staggering new analysis from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has exposed the scale of exploitation silently plaguing the UK’s workplaces: last year, workers were effectively forced to hand over £28.5 billion of their own wages back to their employers.


While corporations enjoyed the fruits of this free labour, one in eight UK employees—a staggering 3.5 million people—were pressured into working extra hours for absolutely nothing in return. According to the TUC’s findings, the average worker sacrificed £8,100 of their hard-earned pay in 2025 by clocking up an average of nearly seven unpaid hours every single week. In total, the workforce contributed a mind-boggling 1.2 billion hours of labour for which they were not compensated.

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