The Employment Rights Bill (ERB) is being sold by the Labour government and many union leaderships as a new era for rights at work and for trade unions. 

The UK has been in breach of International Labour Organisation regulations for at least 45 years.  So much for “the rule of law”!

Labour promised to outlaw “fire and rehire” and zero hours contracts and to strengthen trade union rights. 

But the repeal of Tory anti-union laws only covers the most recent restrictions – the ballot thresholds and the obligation on unions to maintain a “minimum service level” during strikes. The requirement to give an employer notice of strike action is being reduced (from 14 to 10 days) rather than abolished.

Crucially there is nothing in the Bill to allow workers to take solidarity action.  This was a key plank of Thatcher’s assault on the right of trade unions to take strike action, and its restoration would transform the effectiveness of strikes.

The ERB does not provide a single definition of a worker, allowing employers to continue to evade their legal responsibilities by means of phoney “self-employment” arrangements.

The ERB does not bring in full sectoral collective bargaining; just a promise of a negotiating body for adult social care workers and school support staff. This is welcome but nowhere near enough in a situation where just 25% of the workforce is now covered by collective bargaining, compared to 75% forty years ago.

The ERB does not effectively outlaw fire and rehire tactics; only narrows the justifications that an employer can put forward for it, and increases the compensation that an Employment Tribunal can award. Large corporations are happy to “price in” the costs of compensation. This does not deter them as it did not deter P&O three years ago.

The bill does not effectively ban zero-hours contracts but leaves open loopholes by which employers can avoid putting workers on guaranteed hours.

The ERB does nothing to protect the migrant workers.  StatusNow4All is demanding ending short-term work visas in favour of renewable visas subject to ongoing employment. Visas should not be cancelled if enforcement action is taken against employers.

StatusNow4All is also calling for people seeking asylum to be given the right to work, rather than be forced to live on wholly inadequate “support” payments, or to be exploited in casual cash-in-hand employment.

We demand

• An end to all restrictions on trade unions imposed by the Tories since the early 1980’s, particularly the right to take solidarity action.
• The right of unions and workers to prevent fire and rehire attempts through injunctions, with no limit to compensation.
• Proper collective bargaining across the whole workforce.
• The right of trade union access to workplaces.
• An easier path to union recognition.
• Urgent implementation of electronic balloting.

The debate around the ERB is taking place in the context of a government imposing ever more austerity measures.  This includes further cuts to local government finance and cutting thousands of public sector jobs.

The Bill had already been watered down by employer lobbying and now goes to the Lords, where a few peers such as John Hendy KC will introduce amendments to try to strengthen it.

But trade unionists cannot rely on these being successful, and it is vital to keep the pressure on trade union leaderships to demand better legislation by putting in motions and amendments (reflecting the above demands) at the union conferences coming up this spring and summer, as well as TUC Congress in September.

Against this background the the right of workers to organise effectively is becoming more urgent.

You can support the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom’s mass write-in campaign to Industry Secretary Jonathan Reynolds here

NB Featured image: Boycott P&O banner on London May Day demonstration 2022 in response to their fire and rehire actions. Photo Steve Eason