The Employment Rights Bill falls short of redressing the imbalance of power between workers and employers and trade unions need to push Labour harder to improve it, Lord John Hendy KC told the GFTU union federation conference.
Lord Hendy said the law would improve current workplace rights, citing positives including improvements to sick pay and parental leave, as well as better union rights to access workplaces.
But “if you judge it against the standard of the Labour Party policy adopted in 2021, it falls far short,” he warned.
It would not empower workers collectively, because it does not restore sectoral collective bargaining and because it leaves untouched the bulk of anti-union legislation dating back to Thatcher, including, crucially, the right to take solidarity action.
Lord Hendy said he was unsure why adult social care and school support staff had been identified as areas where a negotiating body will be set up to determine pay and conditions, “instead of sectors where it’s even more needed, like agriculture or hospitality — some particular unions had leverage over that maybe.
“But it’s important to know that there is no mechanism in this Bill by which sectoral collective bargaining can be introduced by law in any sector — not in adult social care or for school support staff,” highlighting that the subjects for negotiation will be decided by the secretary of state, and the law says unspecified third parties, in addition to workers and employers, will be represented in the talks as well.
The Bill was not strong enough and unions should not be satisfied with it but put pressure on the government to deliver more, he insisted.
This article first appeared in the Morning Star May 20th.