One of the UK’s largest unions, Unite, has broken ranks with Unison and GMB in refusing to endorse the policies resulting from the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum last weekend.
The forum’s purpose is to come up with a policy document to be presented at the party’s conference in October. Workers’ rights and collective bargaining were among the contentious issues discussed.
Labour leader Keir Starmer was said to be keen to reject policies that were “uncosted” and succeeded in avoiding any formal votes on amendments.
The final version passed with broad consensus, but there was disagreement between the UK’s largest unions over the document.
Unite, the UK’s second-largest union, refused to give its backing to it, saying that it “clearly crossed the union’s red lines”. It said this included workers’ rights in collective bargaining – “an area which needs root and branch change, not just tinkering around the edges” – as well as workers’ access to unions and a weakening of language around zero-hours contracts.
Unite concluded: “As the general election draws nearer Keir Starmer has to prove Labour will deliver for workers and we need clear policies on this.”
However, the third largest union in the UK, GMB, sounded a more optimistic note about the proceedings, stating: “This weekend, GMB’s participation in the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum has delivered significant advances for working people.
“Labour now has a policy programme that would make a real difference for workers and industries they work in.
The union claimed that through negotiations, it had secured “historic commitments to strengthening equal pay rights, having shipbuilding contracts that do more to support skills and defence communities and new rights that will strengthen our members’ ability to organise”.
It said Labour had accepted the GMB amendment and had committed to reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating Body that was shamefully scrapped under the Tories – finally delivering recognition and better treatment for our members in schools.
Unison, the UK’s largest union, was also positive, saying that Labour would commit to removing discriminatory adult age bands from the national minimum wage, and would ensure the cost of living was part of the remit of the Low Pay Commission.
The union said Labour was committed to enforcing NMW payments for travel time for those who worked across multiple sites and taking action on exploitative practices. Labour’s New Deal for Working People also committed to Fair Pay Agreements, the first of which would be in adult social care.
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A spokesperson for Labour said: “This is a serious, credible and ambitious policy programme that lays the groundwork for an election-winning manifesto and a mission-driven Labour government that will build a better Britain. There are no unfunded spending commitments in the document.”
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