Employment Rights

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) and my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) on securing this debate. I am a proud trade unionist—in fact, I am a member of two trade unions—so I am pleased to speak in the debate. I get angry about the myths that Government Members often cite. Listening to today’s debate, and particularly to the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), people would think that everything in the garden is absolutely rosy and what the Government are doing for employees is brilliant. That is not the world I and my constituents live in.

The economy has not experienced a double-dip recession and sluggish growth, and only just avoided a triple-dip recession, because of the UK’s employment rights, but because the Government cut spending too far and too fast, hitting business confidence and choking off growth. They do not seem to understand that removing the rights of workers only increases job insecurity, harms work force morale and productivity and lowers consumer confidence, making things worse, not better. Only 6% of small and medium-sized enterprises think that excess regulation—all regulation, not just that on employment rights—is a barrier to growth and harms their business, but there is consensus that the real problems are a depressed economy and difficulty with bank lending.

The Government are keen on international comparisons and, according to the OECD, out of the 36 richest countries, the UK has one of the lowest levels of worker protection, beaten only by America and Canada. That is not a record to be proud of. The Prime Minister has said that his proposals will make it easier to hire people, but we are not that stupid; we all know that this Government’s proposals actually make it easier to fire people. He seems to believe that, with 2.7 million unemployed, including 1 million young people, making it easier to sack people will increase growth. With reasoning like that, it is no wonder that we have never met any of the Chancellor’s growth figures.

Government Members seem to hold the view that it is difficult to sack people, but as a former trade union official who frequently had to tell members that they had no case—using the mantra, “The law is as it is, not as we’d like it to be”—I can tell them that it is already shamefully easy to dismiss workers. The Government’s change to the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims means that almost 60% of all employees under the age of 24, 1.4 million part-time workers, and 32% of all black and minority ethnic employees are not protected.

Having attempted to protect the jobs of such employees, I can attest to how easy it is for them to be sacked. Like colleagues in the House, I can tell some real horror stories, such as the senior railway manager who was accused of gross misconduct. We managed to prove that he was not guilty of any of the charges, but a month later he was given “the envelope”—the pay-off, which he had no alternative but to accept. Workers in a company in my constituency are about to be left in limbo: none of the companies involved in a TUPE transfer was prepared to take responsibility for them, leaving them with no wages, no redundancy payment and unable to claim benefit. I could go on. There is a theme: power remains firmly in the hands of the employer. Our employment protection is already weak and is being weakened further.

Government Members have made various other suggestions to weaken employment protection, including removing small firms from legislation. As about 44% of private sector employment is in SMEs, that would create a second-class citizen at work and make it harder for small firms to recruit good staff.

There have been rumblings about equality legislation, but as the Fawcett Society stated:

“Cutting red tape can all too easily mean scaling back on equality. Many of the regulations being revised—such as protections from unfair dismissal—have been vital in shoring up women's security in the workplace.”

Good employers are not frightened by trade unions and employment rights. The best employers welcome trade unions as partners and have higher than minimum standards of employment rights, but on a zero-hours contract people cannot get a mortgage, buy a car, buy a new fridge or even feed their children. Good employment practice is good for the economy. It promotes confidence and growth. The Government should be promoting good practice, not smashing basic rights.