SIR – The Trades Union Congress (TUC) released some astounding news recently, taken from a new study. They announced that in 2014, workers put in almost £32 billion worth of unpaid overtime which amounted to over £6,000 for each worker doing unpaid work.

It seems one in five people at work regularly work extra hours for no pay, with those in their 40s most likely to be the ones doing this.

So, at a time when British employees work amongst the longest hours in Europe, some are acting as philanthropists, giving huge amounts of their labour away for nothing. And when added together, all this unpaid work is worth incredibly huge amounts of money which is earned but not paid.

There is clearly a lot wrong at the moment in terms of pay and conditions at work for a substantial number of workers in this country. Low pay (sometimes resulting in foodbank use) zero-hours contracts and large amounts of unpaid overtime are not inevitable and should not be regarded as either acceptable or necessary.

But, will anything in this regard change, after the May 7 General Election?

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose