Employment Rights: Government Plans

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]]

I would also like to declare that I am a member of Unite the union and was previously a regional official.

From the 10-hour day campaign in the 19th century through to the campaign for a 35-hour week in the engineering industry in the 1990s, the struggle to protect workers from exploitation and exhaustion has been part of the trade union movement’s DNA. When the current working time limits were first introduced, I was a convenor on the factory floor at the Vauxhall car plant in Ellesmere Port. I saw at first hand how those reforms improved the lives of people working in some of the most challenging and hazardous conditions imaginable—quite literally, cutting hours saved lives. Now those fundamental rights are under threat, and while I am no longer a union officer, I am privileged to be able to speak in their defence in the Chamber today.

The revelation that the Business Secretary is reviewing the working time directive is a matter of great concern. It threatens my constituents, for whom secure and well-paid work is already in short supply, as well as millions of workers across the country. The Government’s intent to take a wrecking ball to the hard-won gains of the labour movement, such as the 48-hour working week limit, holiday pay and rest break entitlements, is clear. The Prime Minister’s pledge that workers’ rights would be “higher than ever before” following our departure from the EU is exposed as yet another empty promise.

We should not be surprised. Many Government Members have long seen Brexit as a vehicle to attacks the rights of workers and the trade union movement. In 2012, the Secretary of State joined other senior Members now in the Cabinet in slandering British workers as being

“the worst idlers in the world”

and advocating a ruinous programme of deregulation and privatisation that would condemn workers’ rights to the dustbin of history. The fact that the new Secretary of State has chosen now to review workers’ rights shows how deeply out of touch the Government are with the mood and needs of the country. Instead of stepping up support for the millions of people who are still struggling desperately to make ends meet, including the nearly 3 million taxpayers yet to see a penny in financial support, this Government have instead frozen key worker pay, look set to cut universal credit and now want to undermine employment rights.

Let us be clear: diluting workers’ rights will do nothing to address the economic catastrophe we face. It will only compound the suffering and misery of the millions of British workers already suffering in-work poverty. As I speak, GMB members at British Gas are engaged in the most significant industrial dispute in the sector’s recent history. Their experience should serve as a potent reminder to every Member in this House that too many workers are still denied basic respect and security in the workplace. While British Gas employees have worked tirelessly during the pandemic to keep our homes warm and connected, their employer is cynically using fire and rehire tactics to cut pay and working conditions.