Labour On Employment And Employment Rights

The Labour Manifesto contains some genuinely radical proposals on employment rights. Key proposals include a 32 hour working week within 10 years, funded by productivity increases, a return to sectoral collective bargaining on pay and working hours, providing for full employment protection from the start of employment and introducing mandatory employee ownership in Inclusive Ownership Funds of up to 10% of large companies. It also proposes a Ministry for Employment Rights, with representation in Cabinet.

In the Manifesto, there is recognition in a number of measures that large numbers of people in the workforce do not have employment status. There are also populist touches, including the introduction of four new bank holidays on the four national patron saints' days. But in common with much of the wider Labour Manifesto it is difficult to imagine how some of the vision could translate into reality and how, for example, sectoral collective bargaining could be achieved outside the public sector, where, to a large extent, it already prevails. Also, some of the measures proposed, particularly those on equality, have not been properly reconciled to the existing legal framework.

In addition to the headline proposals, the Manifesto intends to put forward:

a Real Living Wage of at least £10 per hour for all workers aged 16 and over; strengthening protections for whistleblowers and rights against unfair dismissal for all workers, with extra protections for pregnant women, those going through the menopause and terminally ill workers; ending 'bogus' self-employment and creating a single status of 'worker' for everyone apart from those genuinely self-employed in business on their own account; introducing a legal right to collective consultation on the implementation of new technology in workplaces; banning zero-hour contracts and strengthening the law so that those who work regular hours for more than 12 weeks have a right to a regular contract reflecting those hours, requiring breaks in shifts and cancelled shifts to be paid; increases to the periods of paid maternity and paternity leave and other measures to assist families including a day one right to request flexible working and a 'ban' on the dismissal of pregnant women 'without the prior approval of the inspectorate'. reintroducing protection against third party harassment; updating health and safety law; overhauling trade union law on balloting, industrial action, union recognition and union...