Harlow MP Chris Vince and Labour keep manifesto promise and bring forward new Employment Right’s Bill.
Chris Vince / Tue 22nd Oct 2024 at 06:32am
ON MONDAY, the Government say it has delivered on its manifesto commitment to bring forward its Employment Rights Bill.
Labour say, the bill will update the UK’s outdated employment laws and turn the page on an economy blighted by insecurity, poor productivity and low pay. This includes ending exploitative zero hours contracts and fire and rehire practices, establishing day one rights for paternity, parental and bereavement leave for millions of workers, and strengthening statutory sick pay. These measures will also be beneficial for employers, helping to keep people in work, reduce recruitment costs for employers by increasing staff retention and levelling the playing field on enforcement.
Chris Vince said: “Today, Labour is delivering our promise to introduce our Employment Rights Bill. As promised in the election we will make work pay, fix the labour market that has seen too many people in low pay insecure work, and give the biggest upgrade in workers right’s in a generation.
The Employment Rights Bill is the first step in our plan to improve the lives of working people in Harlow.”
If you would like to get in contact with Chris regarding any issues you are concerned, please contact [email protected].
gary roberts
2024-10-22 07:59:10
If what Ms Rayner stated in Parliament yesterday on employment rights is enforced then it will just be the start of getting rid of the Thatcher "reforms" on trade unions. As a former shop steward I rejoice at that news. Starmer I expect to interfere and dilute any changes but if he does he will lose his job!
Adam
2024-10-22 08:29:41
No idea at all we need less employment laws not more. Hire and fire is dynamic, allows for risk taking and investment. There is a reason 9% of the US are millionaire and only 4% of the UK earn more than 70K. We are held back by regulations.
gary roberts
2024-10-22 09:22:33
Adam, it is not increasing employment law it is just replacing bad and unfair employment law: isn't it?
David Forman
2024-10-22 09:42:11
In Labour's Plan to Make Work Pay which was the New Deal for Working People before the election there were 75 new measures. This Bill contains 28. John Hendy KC, a barrister retained by the UK's biggest trade unions, has criticised this Bill. Hendy says: "these proposals, set out in 119 sections over 105 pages and a further 43 pages of Schedules, come nowhere near the transformational proposals which Labour adopted in 2021 and 2022: A New Deal for Working People." In particular, the Bill emphasises individual rights rather than collective bargaining and fails to deliver on repealing Tory anti-trade union legislation Read Hendy's view at https://www.ier.org.uk/comments/the-new-deal-for-workers-a-focus-on-rights-but-what-about-power/
David Forman
2024-10-22 09:50:28
For Gary's benefit the promised repeal in full of the 2016 Trade Union Act is not happening and all the trade union legislation before 2016 remains in place. As Hendy says: "the Bill does do away with the ballot thresholds of the Trade Union Act 2016 and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act is totally repealed. But the New Deal’s commitment (repeated just before the election in Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay) to secure workplace balloting has been abandoned." All the complex, costly and time consuming rules over strike balloting remain, the only benefit being reducing notice of action to 7 days. Nor is sectoral collective bargaining. The legislation makes clear that the Fair Pay Agreements for Social Care and School Support staff are not collective bargaining in the traditional sense.
David Forman
2024-10-22 10:16:20
This Bill does not even prevent Fire and Rehire. They are three caveats that allow it. The House of Commons Library Briefing says: "Such dismissals would not be automatically unfair if the employer can show that the variation of contract was because of “financial difficulties” that would affect its ability to carry on the business, and that it could not have “reasonably avoided” making the variation.The employer would still need to show that the dismissal was fair, and section 104I provides a series of matters that must be considered in determining whether the dismissal was fair or unfair." We know how long Employment Tribunals take to happen and we also know the successful claims rate is about 11%. Not a lot of use waiting more than 6 months for a Tribunal when no pay coming in. See House of Commons Library Briefing at https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10109/CBP-10109.pdf
Guy Flegman
2024-10-22 10:36:59
Yippee! More red tape and regulation. Just what we need. Do they know what happens when you eat the goose laying the golden eggs. Bad employers will find away around this and multinationals will find this little trouble due to the scale of their operations. I have long known that successive governments wish to get rid of all the small businesses as it is easier to deal with multinationals. The big problem is that small businesses are the backbone of the economy( golden goose) as they contribute most of the tax and employ the bulk of the population. I am sure that many good small business owners will find this the final straw for them. I also bet it will deter many other people from starting a business. This is regardless of whether this is good or bad law, it’s just the wrong economic climate to be introducing new rules. It would be much better to wait until the economy is growing again before making changes that will hinder growth. Same goes for the coming budget. But hey what do I know. I have only managed to survive in business since 1979 employing up to 50 people on high wages and with a very small turnover in staff.
Adam
2024-10-22 13:23:46
Guy it's crazy we have been going 10 years in December and topped out at 7 employees in a very high skilled area. Now I am not replacing them as they leave and parcel the work out to friends across the world. We are led by clowns who have never created anything. Reaves even had her business credit card revoked when at the BoE. Does not bode well.
David Forman
2024-10-22 14:51:37
For those who don't like reading too much you can watch employment law expert Lord John Hendy KC in conversation with Crispin Flintoff at https://youtu.be/leuAGnx0jXQ?si=gpHTRpSDYPy6gtGl
Guy Flegman
2024-10-22 16:57:37
The cold reality is in the 1990’s we had a gdp per capita greater than the United States. Now our gdp per capita is 40% less than that of the United States. Our country has had zero growth since 2008. At every turn our nation has made decisions based on best intentions that have turned out to be the worst possible decisions. The perceived cause of this by international observers is we have a severely unbalanced economy towards the financial sector at the expense of all other sectors. The answer is believed to attract innovation and investment. The catch 22 is to do this you need to reduce taxation and pay higher wages to skilled workers to attract them to the country, but by doing this you will get another period of austerity as the tax revenues will fall in the short term thus effecting public services( short term pain for long term gain) unfortunately the path we are still following is managed decline ( they hope the rich and businesses will not leave)as no one is brave enough to take the risk. When your country is spending more per capita in interest payments(£3000/head as of 8 months ago) on the national debt than it does on education per capita then it becomes very difficult to recover. I am sure the government is well aware of this, but they take their guidance from the world economic forum and the EU and US which do not have our interests at heart. Also because we had been members of the EU for so long our government and the civil service have forgotten how to govern in our interests. The bill discussed above is just another diversion tactic to stop people thinking too hard about why we are all getting poorer.. united we stand and divided we fall, and these days the focus is on division so it is not hard to see where we are going.
gary roberts
2024-10-24 06:19:30
It is clear that the current leadership of the Labour party is trying and failing the people of the United Kingdom in general and Harlow in particular. Voted in on around 34% the message should have been, "we have heard you" and will act on it. For example on the fuel payments and child cap. Now employment rights. These wont happen until 2026 at the earliest and even then a diluted version of the promised changes. Again I ask: anyone got a spare ticket to Vancouver?!
Adam
2024-10-24 09:46:54
Gary what employment laws do you want ? Do you realise the UK is a poor country most people earn less than 40k. The government spending accounts for 50% of the economy. The only possible way out of this mess is to stop handing out things to people and get them working, reward risk taking and job creation and that means exact opposite to having trades unions etc which destroyed most of our industrial base through the them and us approach.
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