Employment Rights Bill

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Ind)]

I am a member of Unite the Union and am the parliamentary chair of the Fire Brigades Union. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

After years of Tory attacks on trade unions and workers’ rights, the Bill will begin to reverse decades of Thatcherite anti-union laws, marking a real shift in the balance of power at work. The repeal of minimum service levels for strikes is a major victory: those laws were tools of class warfare that were designed to break the unions and silence workers. Scrapping them restores the right to strike, a win for every worker.

Equally important is the removal of the undemocratic ballot thresholds imposed by the Tories in 2016. Those barriers undermined collective action. By removing them, we reclaim the power taken from us. Permitting electronic and workplace balloting is another welcome move that will expand democratic participation, but it is not enough. We must go further and repeal every single anti-trade union law since Thatcher.

In its current form, the Bill retains the six-month mandate on strike ballots. Strikes are not battles of a few days or weeks; they are drawn-out struggles for justice and dignity. Workers in Coventry South who are fighting union-busting corporate giants such as Amazon know that these fights can last years. They need mandates that match the reality. We should abolish them entirely and repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 in its entirety, as the Government committed to doing.

Sectoral collective bargaining for social care and support staff is a good start, but all workers across all industries deserve that protection. Voluntary agreements on union access are not enough. Union organisers need guaranteed automatic access. We should also guarantee automatic union recognition when a majority of members join.

Workers have already waited for a decade under Tory rule while their rights have been stripped away, their wages have stagnated and they have been subjected to rogue operators such as P&O. We cannot afford more delays while powerful interests water down reforms. This legislation is a victory for the trade union movement, but the fight is far from over. We need radical change, and that is what I will keep fighting for.