Author: Tony Burke
ITUC Global Rights Index 2025 – Workers’ rights collapse across the world

“The 2025 ITUC Global Rights Index exposes the outcomes of the betrayal of the system built after World War Two, founded on democracy, trade union rights and justice” said ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle. “Governments have collaborated in decades of deregulation, neoliberalism, and neglect, leading to the collapse of workers’ rights. This has disenfranchised millions and paved the way for extremism, authoritarianism and the billionaire coup against democracy that now threatens democracy itself.
Employment Rights Bill – Suggested Amendments: write to your union
The Employment Rights Bill is now being discussed in the House of Lords. The Bill as it currently stands offers the promise of much needed gains for working people. But, with a few tweaks, the Bill could offer so much more.
Lord John Hendy KC has been diligently drafting a limited number of amendments in an attempt to improve the Bill on issues of importance to the trade union movement. The debate in the Lords is due to continue on 3rd, 5th and 10th June – so time is short!
Below is a list of the topics covered by Lord Hendy’s amendments. Many unions work closely with parliamentary representatives in both the Commons and the Lords. It would be extremely helpful and much appreciated if union members and CTUF supporters could forward this list to your union or your amended version of the list – expressing your support.
Details of the amendments will of course be available to members of the Lords – they are extensive so circulating this with the amendment numbers and the subject matters would be helpful.
Please note the following amendments as follows:
- 143 to permit injunction to prevent breach of s.188 collective redundancy requirements;
- 152-173, 176-179 to convert school support staff negotiating body into proper collective bargaining;
- 181-187, 191, 193-4, 197-199 to convert adult social care negotiating body into proper collective bargaining;
- 203 to provide a mechanism to introduce sectoral collective bargaining into any sector of the economy;
- 214 to permit injunction to compel union access if ordered by CAC;
- 238 to provide a positive right to strike;
- 239 to make it lawful to strike over dismissal of unofficial strikers;
- 240 to permit secondary action;
- 241 to permit strikes to gain recognition;
- 242 to omit obligation to give notice of ballot to employers;
- 243 to omit the distinction between separate and aggregated ballots;
- 249 to omit obligation to provide postal notice of ballot result to members and employer;
- 251 to simplify notice of strike to bare minimum;
- 253 to return the right to strike to the POA;
- 257 to return the obligation to promote collective bargaining to ACAS;
- 260 SoS to formulate action plan to achieve 80% collective bargaining coverage, as in EU.
John McDonnell MP : MPs Will Call For A Second Employment Rights Bill

MPs will call for a second Employment Rights Bill to be introduced this autumn if the current legislation is not amended to include union demands for sectoral bargaining and creation of a single “worker” status, former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said today.
The chair of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union’s parliamentary group of MPs told its annual conference that the current government legislation “doesn’t go far enough.”
He said: “So what we’ll be doing as a trade union on your behalf: we’ll be seeking to amend that legislation over the course this consultation.
“If this legislation doesn’t contain those demands, we’ll be calling for a second employment rights Bill to be brought forward this autumn that really brings forward the trade union rights that we’ve been campaigning for over the years.”
He said it was interesting that former Labour chancellor Gordon Brown had joined the growing momentum putting pressure on the government to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
Mr McDonell, who remains suspended from Labour for voting last year to abolish the two-child benefit cap, added: “I don’t want it amended to three children or four children — I want it gone altogether.”
The winter fuel allowance should also be returned to a universal benefit taxed from richer pensioners, he said.
Labour’s decision to means test it “was a decision taken in haste and a huge mistake that has impacted on many poorer pensioners,” said the MP for Hayes and Harlington, adding the worst of the government’s austerity drive is its proposed disability cuts.
He warned that introducing stricter eligibility for personal independence payments risked suicides, adding: “If the [Treasury’s self-imposed] fiscal rules are causing that level of human suffering they should be scrapped as well.”
Turning to the local elections, he said: “What Reform has done is exploit those mistakes and like every proto-fascist party in history — because that is what they are — they blame what’s going wrong in our society on any group they can target, and this time it’s asylum-seekers.”
Mr McDonnell hit out at Labour’s anti-migration rhetoric, adding: “I found it disgraceful that a Labour Prime Minister was using the words of Enoch Powell.”
First published in the Morning Star May 23rd.