Unpaid overtime

Workers put in £23bn of unpaid overtime last year, losing out an average of £4800 each, according to a study which highlights Britain's long-hours culture.

Scottish employees who do unpaid overtime lose £79.82 a week for the extra six-and-a-half hours they work. This is the equivalent of £4151 a year in lost earnings.According to figures released yesterday by the Scottish TUC, Scots worked £1728m worth of unpaid overtime last year.

A survey by the TUC found employees work an average of seven hours and six minutes extra every week and if they did all their unpaid work at the start of the year, the earliest they would be paid would be February 23.

On February 23, employees will be encouraged to take a proper lunch break and go home on time. Employers will be asked to use the day to thank their staff by buying them lunch or taking them out after work.

Is this really going to be the response of the STUC ? To request a free meal from management for us working for our bosses for nothing ?

And of the working class ?? It is one of the cornerstones of Marxist economics that unpaid labour is the source of the Capitalists' profit - the Labour Theory of Value . It is why we in the The Socialist Party call the Capitalists thieves for appropriating this unpaid labour . Now , to actually do even more extra unpaid work beyond our contractual hours of employment , that's an act of the greatest charity by workers - and the Capitalists go laughing all the way to the bank . Indeed we are truly the ragged trousered philanthropists .