Fire and Rehire

Debate between Ian Lavery and Sheryll Murray

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. It is important to recognise the situation facing the ordinary workers in this country who are facing these draconian fire and rehire measures. I congratulate my hon. Friend—my great friend—the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) on bringing this debate to Westminster Hall today. It is the working people who have kept our country on its feet. They are the true heroes in every sense of the word. It is the keyworkers, mainly low-paid workers, not the hedge fund managers, Government cronies or indeed the highly paid, who are being subjected to what the Minister quite rightly framed as “bullyboy tactics”.

Security of employment is so important to hard-working individuals and their families. Is it not right that ordinary people are treated with absolute dignity and fairness, not as inconvenient necessities by fat cat millionaires who frankly would sell their own grandmothers for a pound?

The scourge of fire and rehire practices, which have always haunted workforces, has expanded rapidly since the beginning of the pandemic. The Prime Minister himself stated that it was capitalism and greed that got us through this covid pandemic. My message to the Prime Minister is that it was the workforce of this country that got us to where we are today, and the reward for many of them is fire and rehire. These are human beings. They are real people, with mortgages, rent payments, credit cards and credit, with kids and families, with expectations and with ambitions, who have been treated appallingly by employers who care little and a Government that talk the talk but fail to walk the walk. As my hon. Friend said in her opening speech, whether it be Goodlord, where salaries are being slashed by up to £6,000, whether it be Go North West where salaries are being slashed by up to £2,500, Jacobs Douwe Egberts with £7,000 a year lopped off salaries, or Melrose Brush with potentially £15,000 a year slashed off people’s salaries. These are real people. What about the Heathrow worker with 40 years’ service, expected to take a 39.1% pay reduction? The list goes on and on.

This is legalised robbery; it is legalised theft, with astonishing consequences for those doing the right thing. It is ruthless corporate bullying. It is intimidation. It is harassment of people with families, people with bills to pay. We all agree that this is a time of great uncertainty. Fire and rehire must be outlawed. If it is good enough for Ireland, France and Spain, by goodness it is good enough here in the UK. Where is the much-awaited ACAS report, Minister? Come clean. What are you hiding? Publish it if you can. This is simply unacceptable in modern-day Britain. Coming out of a year-long pandemic, Minister, ensure that the draconian practice of fire and rehire is outlawed in the Queen’s Speech. Fix this now and fix it for good—and for those workers out there, join a union.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)]

Order.