Steve Witherden MP talks about the need to implement the Employment Rights Bill in full as part of Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay.
This article was originally published in Wrexham.com, 10 October 2024, and can be found here.
Like a lot of people in Wales, I was a public sector worker for most of my life before becoming an MP. I know that working for a wage doesn’t pay like it used to. Over my nearly twenty-year career as a teacher and trade unionist around North Wales, I’ve seen first-hand some incredibly exploitative employment practices used against people.
That is why voting into law a New Deal for Working People was one of my main campaign pledges. With many of my constituents demonstrating against Oscar Mayer at this very moment, it is more important than ever.
The UK Labour government will today publish its flagship legislation for workers, the Employment Rights Bill, fulfilling our commitment to introduce the law within the first 100 days of office.
The biggest upgrade of workers’ rights in a generation is sorely needed. We have a system that disproportionately taxes income over assets or wealth, which penalises those who live off wages from honest work.
Those wages have stagnated since the financial crisis. Working people have been bearing the brunt of a faltering economy for well over a decade and a half.
Without a healthy, skilled, and fairly paid workforce, there will be no way to get the economy moving again and bring the renewal we promised.
Labour’s Employment Rights Bill will ban zero-hours contracts and unpaid internships, end fire and rehire, and deliver a real living wage, helping to close the gender pay gap. We will repeal the Tories’ exploitative anti-worker laws, and bring in new rights for union reps. The Green Paper promised day-one parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal. I will work to ensure that these measures are implemented in full.
There will be a right to switch off, badly needed in a world where work has been brought into many people’s homes by technology, eroding the separation of work and life. We will establish a Fair Work Agency, to monitor the enforcement of these rights and bring our employment laws into line with the demands of the modern economy.
Enforcement is crucial. The Fair Work Agency must have teeth and be given the flexibility to work closely with cooperating employers while intervening against rulebreakers. Otherwise, blatantly exploitative employment practices, like the apparent firing and rehiring of Oscar Mayer workers in Wrexham to force them onto worse contracts and depress their pay, will keep happening. I visited them striking last week – with around 700 people taking industrial action, it is easily the biggest strike I have ever seen, and a real testament to the power of solidarity. They have my full support.
For too long, work hasn’t paid fairly. With this bill, which I will be proud to vote into law, Labour will make work pay again.