Maria Exall says Labour must stand up to business lobbying on Employment Bill
Labour must deliver change in the workplace if it is to deliver change in the country. The once in a generation uplift to workers’ rights in the Employment Rights Bill has to be fit for purpose across the whole economy. The Bill should be the beginning not the end of this Labour Government’s aspiration to reform the UK labour market.
As the Bill progresses through Parliament some business leaders are, of course, lobbying to water it down. They can see how moving from the “race to the bottom” model on workers terms and conditions will curtail some of their profits. They look for ways of undermining the new framework of decent work and decent wages that the Bill will introduce. Labour should be prepared to introduce further legislation to combat any loopholes or new practices that undermine the intention of the Bill.
The Employment Rights Bill is intended to address the crisis of low pay and the explosion of temporary and insecure employment. In the UK today being in work does not guarantee job security or freedom from poverty. Two thirds of all child poverty in the UK is within working families. Over four million workers, including a million on zero hours contracts, have minimal employment protections.
The Bill introduces rights from day one of employment against unfair dismissal and sexual harassment and improves flexible working arrangements, parental and other work/life balance rights. Up to a third of the UK workforce will gain from these new rights, both workers in casualised employment and those with a permanent contract who currently have to wait for two years. Rights from day one has the potential to change the culture in the workplace.
The Bill ends exploitative zero hours contracts and improves rights for casualised workers which means greater control and regulation of exploitation in the “gig” and wider platform economy. Enforcement of standards will be done by a Fair Work Agency, which needs to be adequately funded. This together with strong union organisation at workplace level can lift wages, terms and conditions and empower working people.
The key to better pay and job security is an extension of collective bargaining and Union power in the UK. The Bill will restore many of the unjustified restrictions on the ability of trade unions to access workplaces to recruit and represent their members. This is necessary for workers such as those in Amazon warehouses, as well as those working in growing areas of the economy including big data and new tech.
Labour has already announced that the Minimum Service Level Act 2023 (which removed the right to strike from over a fifth of all workers) will not be used before it is formally repealed. And it has announced the impending repeal of most of the provisions in the 2016 Employment legislation including those that brought in unreasonably high ballot thresholds for industrial action.
Underpinning the Employment Rights Bill is a welcome recognition that the UK needs strong and free trade unions to create a fairer and more equal society.
If the benefits of economic growth are to be distributed more equally, we need a turn towards a model that recognises good work as essential for collective prosperity. Decent pay, skills training, more career pathways, including proper apprenticeships, and other improvements. Improved rights at work and the subsequent rise in standards of employment means better quality services and a healthier workforce.
The Bill addresses the problems of the “two tier” workforce we find in many companies and sectors in the UK. Outsourced workers in public services are often on second class terms and conditions. Younger workers as new entrants to the workforce are often denied access to the wage levels, skills training, pension and benefits rights that were the norm for the previous generation. These problems are addressed by proposals for new rights including the abolition of a lower rate of the National Minimum Wage for young workers.
After 14 years of Tory austerity fairer and more inclusive workplace rights would allow for utilities and other infrastructure companies to plan for long term investment, with jobs spread around the regions. Secure jobs and decent work can help us prepare for the challenges of the future including climate change and a just transition to a greener economy.
The proposals in the Employment Rights Bill come at a time when it is common for people to associate their experience of disempowerment at work with a scepticism and distrust of democracy itself. The shift of industrial power that the Bill promises is vital. We cannot accept the current global trend for a plutocracy where economic might is right and working people are expected to put up with the vagaries of unaccountable corporate leaders.
The way to cut through the prejudice and hate peddled by Reform and others is to deliver decent jobs, secure homes, and fund public services. We need an economy that works for working people.
The experiences of the organised labour movement, whose historic mission is to eliminate poverty pay, insecure work and exploitative conditions, are at the centre of the proposals in the Employment Rights Bill. The Trade Unions affiliated to the Labour Party contributed to the Bill through their input into the New Deal for Working People (Newdeal). When the Employment Rights Bill was presented to Parliament it was opposed by both Conservative Party and Reform. The political lines have been drawn on the agenda of workers’ rights.