Tag Archives: Labour Party

Britain, Business, Economic, Government, Legal, Politics, Society

Employment rights bill

BRITAIN

PRIOR to Labour coming into office, its general election manifesto said the government would introduce its workers’ rights package within its first 100 days. Yesterday, on day 97, it fulfilled that pledge. Parliament will debate the newly published employment rights bill in just over a week’s time. Even so, this is only one stage in a longer workplace reform journey that will take more than one parliamentary session to deal with. Many of the government’s decisions about changes to the world of work remain to be nailed down and are not part of the bill at all.

It has become easy to caricature the new legislation, and many are doing so. The Conservatives dismiss it all as rewards to Labour’s trade union paymasters. The Unite union says the plan is full of gaping holes. The Federation of Small Businesses says the plans are rushed and chaotic. But the British Chambers of Commerce says the government is listening and responsive. What isn’t in question, though, is the level of business fury. A leading legal publication says the package strikes positive notes with lawyers.

With views polarised, this is leading to a sterile, zero-sum debate on work issues. But the larger truth is that this is a bill about change. Employment law has not kept pace with developments in the worlds of work, family, and business. The stark reality is that a fresh approach, centred on the work issues of today and tomorrow rather than those of the past, is long overdue.

Unsurprisingly, then, the employment rights bill is multiple different things, not one simple ideal. The bill is large and wide-ranging. It comes in six discreet sections, containing 119 different clauses and runs to 158 pages. Most of it is about terms and conditions for individual employees, and the obligations that employers will have to follow. The bill also creates a Fair Work Agency to enforce it. Relatively little of it is actually about the law on trade unions at all, though you might not think so to listen to the political debate.

The most important rights in the bill belong to individual workers, and especially to new hires and to families. These include unfair dismissal protection from day one, along with day-one paternity and unpaid parental leave rights. Sick pay will apply from day one as well. Workers on zero-hours contracts will gain guaranteed hours if they want them. Fire and rehire on worse terms will be banned. Flexible working will be a default right.

The bill does not set all these rights in stone. A statutory probation period for new hires is still being discussed, during which greater flexibility would apply. Fire-and-rehire prohibitions may not be applied to businesses at risk of collapse. Small firms, some of which do not have HR departments to navigate these rules, are looking for a more adaptable approach too. It is better to get these issues right than to rush into them.

Some gaps remain. These include the right to switch off outside working hours, as well as a requirement for large employers to report on equalities pay gaps. Some unions want to roll back more of the restrictive legislation from the Conservative years. Nevertheless, the larger reality is that it is important that workforces should be well paid and treated fairly. This matters in terms of economic and employment justice, but also in making businesses more innovative and more productive. On this, at least, the Labour government’s approach is in line with the public mood – and rightly so.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics, Society

Labour will be judged on deeds not words

LABOUR PARTY

THE CHANCELLOR, Rachel Reeves, with a rictus smile glued to her face at the Labour Party conference this week has sought to change the government’s central message from one of unremitting gloom to one of hope.

After weeks of relentless negativity over alleged black holes, broken Britain and “tough decisions” ahead, the Chancellor has laid out her vision for the promised land to come.

No one could argue with most of it. Who wouldn’t want a fairer society, great public services, better schools, higher growth, and a strong economy? However, Ms Reeves offered no discernible strategy for achieving these admirable goals. Nor did she touch on the price we will all have to pay.

Many will be surprised to hear her say there would be “no return to austerity”.

For millions of pensioners stripped of their winter fuel allowance it has already arrived and the Budget on October 30 is expected to be an assault on the finances of middle Britain.

The Chancellor claims she will not raise taxes on “working people” but what does that mean? Does she include those who have worked all their lives but are now retired? Those whose efforts and talents put them in the higher tax brackets? Entrepreneurs? Savers?

More likely she will deliver selective austerity, in which the private sector will be fleeced to ratchet up the pay and pensions of state employees.

The process has already begun with inflation-busting wage increases across the public sector which, incidentally, account for around half of the £22billion black hole supposedly left by the previous Tory government.

There will be a crackdown on welfare, fraud, and worklessness. The Government has said it will make special provisions in law for the most vulnerable.

The Trade Unions, far from being grateful, are ravenous for more. RMT chief Mick Lynch is demanding nothing less than “the complete organisation of the UK economy by trade unions”.

Mr Lynch wants to sweep away the Thatcher reforms and make it easier to shutdown workplaces and even entire industries if employers fail to meet demands on pay and conditions. Welcome back to the 1970s.

Other unions are coming in hard and fast. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said the recent 5.5 per cent pay award for nurses in England was not enough and must be improved.

By giving train drivers 15 per cent and junior doctors south of the Border 22 per cent, Ms Reeves has begun a wage spiral which could strangle any hope of economic growth.

Hardened by years of industrial trench warfare with the Tories, union barons are not about to bow down to a weak and inexperienced Labour government. On the contrary, they believe they can control it.

The constant talking down of the economy is having baleful effects. It is now hard fact that UK businesses are freezing both vital investment and the hiring of staff ahead of the Budget. There is an alarming collapse in business confidence.

Ms Reeves has said this would be “the most pro-business government we have ever seen”. But with the constant negativity and parlous state of the UK economy why would anyone invest in a country when its Chancellor has been saying for weeks that it is effectively a basket case?

This speech was an attempt to inject some positivity into the Labour narrative, but she will be judged by her deeds, not her words.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics, Society

Starmer needs to recalibrate the mood

LABOUR PARTY

ELECTED to office less than three months ago, the Labour Party has begun its annual conference – this year in Liverpool – already weighed down by incumbency: rows over gifts from wealthy party donors and tickets to football games as well as rifts about Keir Starmer’s chief of staff’s pay are feeding into the public disquiet. These come amidst the burden of government in difficult economic circumstances. Coupled with the low public trust and the needless surplus of gloom, the political honeymoon period for Labour is well and truly over. We knew change was high up on the political agenda for Labour, but since day one of government it has set out with the explicit objective of dampening expectations of how soon change might come. The gloom is palpable.

There is a degree of urgency for Starmer to recalibrate the mood with a sense of optimism and purpose. He needs to give the country reasons to be glad of a Labour government in ways that go beyond relief at no longer being governed by Tory rule. New governments often come to power blaming the last for what it has inherited. The PM has given the nation an unvarnished account of the dismal legacy left for Labour; a bleak audit that covers a record of political and financial maladministration.

Conservative ministers, driven by ideological fanaticism and self-serving cynicism, squandered energy and vital resources on ill-conceived, unworkable policies. Public services were starved of the means by which they could effectively operate. With that in mind, it is easy to see that Sir Keir has a difficult job because the country is in a dire mess. Putting things right will take time. Nevertheless, that morose message has been bitterly soured by a performance of fiscal discipline, delivered without a hint of uplifting accompaniment.

The prime minister says things will get worse before they get better. His chancellor, Rachel Reeves, cites “black holes” in the budget, withdraws winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners, and continually pledges that there is more pain to come. Ms Reeves’ argument is that government departments under the Conservatives overspent by £22bn in the budget and that deep cuts are needed to compensate. This is a self-imposed restriction that stems from ill-advised fiscal rules. The force of that constraint, and the zeal with which it is applied as austerity across Whitehall, is also a matter of political choice.

The government’s strategists argue that adherence to Tory spending limits was a “non-negotiable” condition of persuading the public that Labour could be trusted on the economy. Possibly, possibly not. There is no way to test the counterfactual scenario, where Ms Reeves could have fought the election with a wider range of tax-raising options still open. However, the decision to lean into unpopularity so hard, so fast, and without a countervailing narrative of hope looks like very poor strategic judgment.

Labour’s election manifesto contained plenty of reasons to expect a substantial departure from a grim status quo. A marked progressive shift was promised in the areas of workers’ rights, a robust commitment to net zero, improved relations with the rest of Europe and, perhaps most significantly, readiness to embrace a more interventionist model of economic management, including public ownership of utility companies.

The Starmerite script contains rather too much fiscal conservatism, but the hope on the left of the party is that there is a social democratic framework at its core. That would express the opposite of the Tory conviction that government’s main function is to facilitate market supremacy and then get out of the way. Many Labour MPs, activists, and Labour supporting people in the country will feel unsure which of the two strands – cringing continuity or bold departure – will dominate. Keir Starmer’s task is to answer in terms that give hope of meaningful change to come.

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