The Labour Party has published its New Deal for Working People under the heading Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay but has again been accused by some of watering down its employment pledges.
If it wins the general election, Labour plans to address issues such as insecure work, low pay, and exploitative contracts and pledges to “move towards” a simpler two-part employment status framework.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the revised deal had “more holes in it than Swiss cheese” and that the “number of caveats and get-outs means it is in danger of becoming a bad bosses’ charter”, but most trade unions appear accepting of the plan.
Christina McAnea, general secretary of the UK’s largest union Unison, said: “There will be a clear choice in July. A vote for a party that understands the huge struggles employees and their families have been facing. Or one that’s persistently let working people down these past 14 years.
“Labour’s new deal best illustrates that choice. It will make work fairer and boost the economy too. That’s why its measures are proving popular on the doorstep. Bad employers will no longer be able to outprice good ones by cutting corners and reducing costs by exploiting staff.”
Labour’s New Deal
Why Labour’s New Deal intrigues business leaders more than worries them
The new deal, published on Friday (24 May), follows a “red-line” summit earlier this month where Labour and affiliated trade unions reached agreement on the new deal. It still pledges to introduce legislation within 100 days of entering government.
Labour is polling 21 points ahead of the Conservatives with five weeks until the general election.
In the new deal, the party says it would end the “scourges” of fire and rehire that leave working people at the mercy of bullying threats.
“We will reform the law to provide effective remedies against abuse and replace the inadequate statutory code brought in by the government, with a strengthened code of practice,” it says.
Labour would include basic individual rights from day one for all workers, ending the “current arbitrary system” that leaves workers waiting up to two years to access basic rights of protection against unfair dismissal, parental leave and sick pay.
Labour’s plans echo many recommendations made in the 2017 Taylor Review, including fixing the UK’s confusing three-part framework of employment status (employee, worker and self-employed) which requires an “encyclopaedic knowledge of case law” to determine which category people are in.
Labour says it would “consult in detail on a simpler framework that differentiates between workers and the genuinely self-employed”. It says it would consult on how a simpler framework that differentiates between workers and the genuinely self-employed could “properly capture the breadth of employment relationships in the UK”.
This would include evaluating the way flexibility of “worker” status is used and understood across the workforce and the way it interacts with collective agreements. Labour would also consider measures to provide “accessible and authoritative information for people on their employment status” and the rights they are owed, “tackling instances where some employers can use complexity to avoid legal obligations”.
Other pledges include strengthening protections around redundancy, TUPE and whistleblowing and banning “exploitative” zero-hours contracts.
Labour would also change the Low Pay Commission’s remit so that, alongside median wages and economic conditions, the national minimum wage would also take into account the cost of living.
It would also establish a new Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector, assess how and to what extent such agreements could benefit other sectors and tackle labour market challenges.
Labour also says it would “end the Conservatives’ scorched-earth approach to industrial relations”, ushering in a new partnership of cooperation between trade unions, employers and government, to put the UK in line with high-growth economies that benefit from more cooperation and less disruption.
Today, in a letter to The Times newspaper, 120 current and former business leaders endorsed Labour’s plans for change saying the party wants to work with business to achieve the UK’s full economic potential.
“We should now give [Labour] the chance to change the country and lead Britain into the future. We are in urgent need of a new outlook to break free from the stagnation of the past decade and we hope by taking this public stand we might persuade others of that need too,” they said.
Signatories include Karen Blackett, UK president, WPP; John Holland-Kaye, former CEO, Heathrow; Charles Randell, former chair, Financial Conduct Authority; and Richard Walker, executive chairman, Iceland Foods.
The letter added: “We are looking for a government that will partner fiscal discipline with a long-term growth strategy, working in partnership with the private sector to drive innovation and investment to build digital and physical capital and fix our skills system. This is the only way to put us on track for sustained productivity growth.”
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