Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill

Debate between Mark Pawsey and Imran Hussain

Friday 22nd October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain]

I agree in part with the hon. Lady’s point. The issue here is this. She made her points earlier. I accept that there are good employers and there are those who perhaps are not behaving in the manner that they should. Referring to one of her previous points, the issue is this: those employers that are acting in a just, proper and proportionate manner are actually worse off because they are being undercut by unscrupulous employers that are not acting in the manner that they should. The size is perhaps for illustration purposes, but I do take some of her points.

Faced with such scandalous and disgraceful behaviour by employers, the Government should have stepped in as fire and rehire spread through our economy like wildfire, but they did not. Instead, it has only been the Labour movement, trade unions and staff coming together to organise in the workplace that stopped the use of fire and rehire at places such as British Airways, Go North West and Heathrow. It was not Ministers and it was not the Government.

Let me make this point clear. The campaigns and victories of our proud trade unions fighting against fire and rehire, fighting against bad bosses, and fighting for their members and working people right across the country—whether it be Unite, GMB, Unison, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, Community or others—shows that, despite this Government’s every effort to diminish and grind them down, there is still power in the union.

[Mark Pawsey]

The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) accused my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) of overegging the cake. Is not the shadow Minister doing exactly that?

[Imran Hussain]

The hon. Member’s point does not even have a passing acquaintance with fiction, never mind fact, and does not deserve a response.

Trade unions and working people have been deliberately hindered in their efforts to fight fire and rehire as the Government put barriers in their way and bog them down in red tape.