How did Labour let its most life-transforming policy get more publicity for its suspected “watering down” than it ever got for the policy itself? Today, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner will meet the unions to assure them the new deal for working people is as radical as ever: an agreed, detailed policy document follows soon. The Trades Union Congress, broadly supportive, is watching carefully for any weakening of the deal, while this year’s TUC president, the Fire Brigades Union’s Matt Wrack, sends out warning shots against backsliding.
Speaking to the shopworkers’ union Usdaw last month, Starmer was adamant that he would not back down. And to business leaders recently he said that “to be crystal clear”, Labour would “level up workers’ rights in a way that has not been attempted for decades”, though he recognised “that might not please everyone in the room or the wider business community”. This is core to Labour’s purpose and to igniting growth. Only Unite’s Sharon Graham publicly claims “betrayal”, as she often does. But in private today, all unions will want cast-iron reassurance.
They do need to scrutinise every word to block loopholes. These rights best help the weak and voiceless – the one in nine workers in insecure jobs who are prone to exploitation. I saw how employers cheat the law when researching my book Hard Work. I took a job as a porter advertised in the job centre, not for some rogue outfit but for a hospital. As most public sector manual work has been outsourced, ever since Margaret Thatcher’s orders, I was not working for the NHS, but for an agency supplying the main contractor, providing portering and cleaning.
After queueing for hours in a jam-packed office behind a shabby shopfront, applicants were handed forms to sign. We couldn’t take them away to study their minuscule fine-print, so I took notes. The casual worker agreement was an “agreement to provide occasional services” – otherwise known as a zero-hours contract. In a key clause, I opted out of the 48-hour maximum working week, a legal “voluntary” waiver: “The temporary worker hereby agrees that the working week limit shall not apply.”
All flexibility around working too many or too few hours belonged to the agency. Other clauses read: “as a casual worker you will not be subject to the company’s grievance and disciplinary procedures” and “uniform costs will be deducted from the following week’s pay”. The legal four weeks’ holiday would apply after 13 weeks of continuous service; agencies tend to fire and rehire after 12 weeks. Voluntary? No signature, no job.
That’s the squalid, exploitative world Labour would abolish. But employment law is fiendishly complex because work covers multitudinous occupations and situations. Examine the working time regulations’ exemptions for sea fishing, civil protection, the armed forces, police and so on to see why some of the broad principles outlined in Labour’s original green paper were bound to be refined. Done right, that’s not necessarily “watering down”. After much negotiation with the unions, these changes were agreed (except by Unite, which abstained) at Labour’s national policy forum this January. One difficulty: zero-hours contracts suit some workers, so Labour’s new offer gives them day-one rights and after 12 weeks a contract for minimum hours actually worked.
However, the law hardly matters if enforcement is reduced to rubble. Labour will merge and boost ineffective regulators, so every employee knows the number to call. The UN’s International Labour Organization, to which the UK is a signatory, requires one inspector for 10,000 employees: the UK is 1,797 short, and bad employers know it. Labour’s fair pay agreements, drawn up with business and unions, would enforce pay and conditions across an entire industry, starting with social care. Winston Churchill in 1909 created wages councils for minimum pay across sectors from agricultural work to hat-making: Thatcher and John Major abolished them.
The first ever law forcing all employers to admit union recruiters will be a gamechanger, letting union reps into every “fulfilment centre”, fast-food restaurant, care home and care agency, pizza delivery company and delivery depot. Trade union membership raises average pay and prevents employer skulduggery. The fall in union membership helped cause the great 1980s decline in pay. But recruitment is now near-impossible in such places, relying on union reps leafletting outside workplaces at shift change, as people hurry home to children or to a second job.
To organise freely without fear of employers picking on joiners, sacking them or denying them extra hours will send membership soaring: there were more than 12 million union members in 1980, but only 6.25 million in 2022. Restoring union rights will remove recent anti-strike laws: Labour has just added easier union recognition rules and electronic balloting. It will stop planned new employment tribunal fees, which – along with tribunal backlogs a year long – deter the low-paid from making claims.
These rights get overwhelming support from the public, and from most managers: a level playing field prevents undercutting by rogue companies. Chartered Management Institute polling finds 80% of managers want workers’ rights prioritised, and 83% think better working rights raise productivity.
Making this policy work is key to Labour’s growth plan, as the TUC rightly says: “The UK’s long experiment with a low-rights, low-wage economy is a complete failure.” Where’s the payoff for all these Tory years of deregulation, anti-union laws, public sector pay cuts in real terms and rising inequality? Productivity grew by just 0.4% a year in the 12 years after the financial crisis. That’s half the rate of the 25 richest OECD countries, says the Resolution Foundation. The Marmot review shows bad working lives lead to worse physical and mental health, absence due to illness and worklessness raising disability costs.
The Tories dithered on the “watering down” story, from viewing it as another Labour flip-flop to labelling it as Labour obeying its union “paymasters” and saying the plans would pile “70 new burdens on employers”. Business has been mostly quiescent, asking for clarification to prevent “unintended consequences”. But that in itself raises suspicions among some Labour people too quick to believe any “backsliding” story, ever since soaring inflation and borrowing costs forced a retreat on the £28bn green investment deal until later in parliament. Natalie Elphicke’s bizarre arrival in their ranks only confirmed those expecting nothing but disappointment, spying Peter Mandelson’s hand everywhere. (My guess is he’s actually miffed at being left out, hence his snidery about Starmer’s weight.)
Employment law is a thicket where every detail matters. Today’s meeting, and the final policy paper shortly to come, need a resounding reaffirmation from Labour and the unions that well-designed rights, made law in the first 100 days of a Labour government, will mark a seismic shift in power from employer to employee, with rising union membership and rising wages.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
