There is still more to be done...
Tony Burke is the Co-Chair Of The Campaign For Trade Union Freedom
The Campaign For Trade Union Freedom and the Institute of Employment Rights have issued a new six page document which will be published next week and will be available to delegates at the TUC in Brighton and the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool from September 22nd.
Written by three of the UKs leading employment rights specialists Lord John Hendy KC and Professors Keith Ewing and Nicola Kountouris the document “A New Deal & A New Government” congratulates Labour on the pledges contained in the Kings Speech to honour its election manifesto to implement the proposals made in Labour’s plan to make work pay and delivering a new deal for working people.
Whilst issues such as banning zero hours contracts, ending fire and rehire and employment rights from day one have generated national publicity in the media the CTUF-IER document sets out some key issues which must be addressed in the forthcoming Employment Rights Bill (due in October – and further measures thereafter) to make sure the bill makes a significant difference to the UK’s 31 million workforce.
It warns, Labour only goes part of the way to achieve the goals set out in their plan, which includes backing working people to take their voice at work back; improving their terms and conditions and ensuring protections at work and workplace rights are fit for a modern economy and tackling insecure work, increasing productivity and creating the right conditions for sustained economic growth.
The document also points out that the UK’s existing framework for industrial relations and collective bargaining is “rife with inefficiencies and anachronisms that work against cooperation, compromise and negotiation” and that legislation needs updating “so it is fit for a modern economy, removing unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity and ensuring industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining.”
Warning Labour not to exploit Brexit to avoid the need to grow collective bargaining, it points out that there can be no effective collective bargaining without an effective right to strike and that the current scope of collective bargaining in the New Deal is limited to sectoral bargaining arrangements only for adult social care, restoring negotiating procedures for school support staff, and protecting national collective bargaining for the fire service. “Important though this will be for the workers in these sectors, it does not begin to touch the wider problem, and falls far short, for example, of the 80% coverage target adopted by the EU as part of its 2022 directive on adequate minimum wages.”
On trade union rights the document says that the current rule banning an application for recognition for three years following an unsuccessful Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) application should be revised and say six months is long enough – given the high turnover in many workplaces today.
The law on unfair labour practices should be amended so that it is unlawful for an employer to interfere with the relationship between workers and their trade unions, for example by encouraging, facilitating or inducing them to resign from their chosen union.
Equally union membership and collective bargaining under the statutory recognition procedure should not be limited (as at present) to pay, hours and holidays, but should include all contractual terms and conditions (and anything else agreed).
There is a need for Labour to be consistent with its general commitment to “update trade union legislation so it is fit for a modern economy, removing unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity and ensuring industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining”.
These issues and more will be discussed on the fringe at this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton at the Institute of Employment Rights and Campaign for Trade Union Freedom fringe on Sunday 8th September at 6:00 pm (or close of Congress) at Brighton Conference Centre, Kings Road, BN1 2LN and at the Sussex Morning Star Supporters’ Group on Tuesday 10th September at 2:30 pm in Wagner Hall, BN1 2RU.
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