For many self-employment is a positive choice, not a problem. The left must learn to speak to them.
Liz Hind is landlady of a tenant pub. She is a member of Labour Business with policy interests in women in business, small business and self-employment. She is a Research Associate at York Law School working on the UK Pubs Observatory.
Just as Left can’t just wrap itself in a flag and tell people that it is patriotic, similarly, we can’t just say that we are pro-business and hope that others will believe us because we’ve given a nice speech to the CBI. There must be an authenticity to our words and policies, but luckily for us there are plenty of issues in business that should be home turf to get us started.
The easiest place to start is to be clearer over our thoughts on self-employment and those that pay themselves through their own limited company. The distinctions between the two are more often based on tax status than the realities of life and the risk that these working people take on. Many start up on their own but take on employees and become a business as they succeed and grow. It is also the route into business for a lot of people who don’t have a huge corporation to inherit.
Before the pandemic, the number of self-employed people had been steadily rising to a record high of 5 million. The numbers have dipped because of the of the lack of support driven largely by a lack of understanding of how self-employment works. However, it remains a strong possibility that the improvements in connectivity and the changing nature of work will see the pre-pandemic trend be a long-term social change. Many people have adjusted to working from home and having some autonomy and will want to keep it. We should be prepared to meet that challenge and get ahead of the curve.
There are of course people for whom self-employment is not the right answer and evidence that some companies use it as a way to evade their responsibilities. But by talking for a disproportionate length of time about self-employment as a problem to be fixed we miss the fact that for many self-employment is aspirational. It is not just the ability to fix your own working pattern, but also a pride in standing on your own two feet and paying your own way. If we only talk about it as a problem, then we ignore and estrange those who have made the choice to go it on their own.
What we need is a way to extend our understanding and experience of nurturing people while providing a safety net. It is only the Left that can offer real, practical solutions to the self employed and small business owner. Unions need to take this social change seriously and offer legal advice, bread funds and support to the newly self-employed to set up. Collective organisation and collective representation are subjects that we are experts in, and these ideas are as important for the self-employed and small business owner as the employed. Imbalances of power within the system exist no matter what form of work you do, and it is the Left that really understands that and has the solutions for it.
We need to start focusing on rights at work, rather than workers’ rights. It may seem at first like a slight change in language, but it has the potential to make a fundamental difference to how we approach working people. When the Left talks about worker’s rights we mean the rights of the employed, excluding millions of working people. We could extend those rights and protections.
For example, the right to be paid on time. This right should extend from those on any type of contract who have a regular pay day, but also the self-employed and the small business owner where the late payment of invoices is a problem. Being paid a fair amount for the work that you do is a universal right that the left should feel at home talking about. For those who are employed we have a minimum wage and a living wage rate. The self-employed should also be helped to understand what an actual living wage looks like for them. Taking into account sick pay, holiday pay and the extra unpaid work required to be self-employed.
Other universal rights at work are harder to solve, but that should not deter us. The right to dignity and a workplace free of sexual harassment is harder to provide when there is no employer to take responsibility. Answers to this issue require a more universal approach, but one that would benefit all.
Without understanding the changing nature of work and employment, and planning for it, the Left risks alienating people who do not see themselves represented. These people may also want the NHS funded properly, they abhor rising child poverty and would support many of the aims of the Left, but do not see themselves in the solutions. We can develop policies that recognise and encourage aspiration, while also protecting rights at work.
Left Foot Forward doesn't have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.