Thank you to everyone who contacted me about standing up for ordinary workers.
After fourteen years under the Conservatives, our economy is blighted by insecure work, low pay, and poor productivity. I therefore welcome the government’s Employment Rights Act that will deliver the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation and make work pay.
It will end exploitative zero-hours contracts by introducing rights to reasonable notice of shifts and to be offered a contract with guaranteed hours, reflecting hours regularly worked. It will end fire and rehire, making it unlawful to dismiss workers because they refuse to agree to a variation of contract. It will establish day one rights for paternity, parental and bereavement leave for millions of workers. And it will strengthen statutory sick pay by making employees eligible from the first day of illness or injury and removing the lower earnings limit test. That is the difference a Labour government can make to the working people of this country.
The Act requires employers to justify the refusal of flexible working requests, expand employers’ duties to prevent harassment of staff and give employees protection from unfair dismissal from day one, subject to a potential probationary period. It also repeals the anti-union legislation put in place by the previous Government and strengthens the voice of working people by making it easier for trade unions to get recognised, giving them the right of access to workplaces, and making sure they have enough time to represent their members.
In addition, the Act establishes a fair pay agreements process in the adult social care sector and re-instate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body to improve terms and conditions for school support staff.
I believe this Act will benefit not only working people but also employers, by helping to keep people in work and levelling the playing field on enforcement. I welcome that the new Government is calling time on the previous administration’s scorched earth approach to industrial relations, which led to the worst strikes chaos in decades. A new partnership between trade unions, employers and government will ensure we benefit from more cooperation and less disruption, as we raise the floor on workplace rights to deliver a stronger, fairer, and brighter future for workers in the UK.
Our Employment Rights Act is just one of the ways Labour in government is delivering for ordinary workers. In the last year’s budget the Chancellor delivered an above-inflation increase in the minimum wage and brought those aged 18-20 into the higher rate, giving an immediate pay rise to 3.5 million low-paid workers. I’m delighted that thanks to Labour’s victory at the last election we finally have a government that is on the side of ordinary working people again.