Reeves caught at fringe event saying Labour’s workers’ rights package to be “co-written with business”

A workers’ rights package is on the table. And it’s one of the only hopes many people have for the new Labour government. However, comments from chancellor Rachel Reeves at an unbroadcast fringe event at Labour conference have put the party’s plans in doubt.

So, is it really possible to trust Keir Starmer’s Labour Party to make meaningful improvements to workers’ rights? The party that happily took a £4m donation from a dodgy company in a tax haven and hid it away until after the election? The party that has already invested so much effort in making pensioners freeze, keeping children in poverty, and defending fancy freebies? There are certainly reasons to worry – not least

The “business lobby” pushing against “mild” reforms at Labour conference

As UCU general secretary Jo Grady has said, there is plenty of “pressure” coming from the “business lobby” right now. The RMT’s Mick Lynch agrees, adding that corporations want to “dilute the bill”.

And if the comments at a Labour conference business fringe event are anything to go by, it very much looks as if the government will be watering down the package. Because chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed Labour has “addressed and understood” business concerns about the promise to improve workers’ rights. And she stressed that such policies should be “co-written with business”.

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, meanwhile, insisted at a Labour conference fringe event:

It’s not dictating to businesses, it’s not forcing things on people if they don’t want them.

These words were all trying to “reassure” employers, according to some media outlets.

But why? The promises aren’t even slightly radical. Even the centrist New Statesman called them “relatively mild”. And it added:

some in the unions spy slippery get-out clauses, such as Labour’s use of the qualifying term “exploitative” in its commitment to ban zero-hours contracts. Although Labour has pledged to repeal the strictures of the 2016 Trade Union Act, Thatcher’s once-unthinkably restrictive reforms from the 1980s are not on the table.

The Resolution Foundation, meanwhile, released a report highlighting that:

Overall, the UK’s starting point as a country with a high-insecurity and low-regulation labour market means there is room to undertake reform without turning the UK’s labour market into one that is high-regulation. For example, making unfair dismissal protection a ‘day one’ right would still leave the UK’s overall score on the OECD’s employment protection index below the OECD average – level with Ireland and New Zealand.

Why does the UK need a shake up of workers' rights?

Well, if we tackled labour market insecurity, it would make the UK look a lot more like a normal country.

Learn more in the 14th annual Low Pay Britain report ⤵️ https://t.co/4sUGkP6M2R pic.twitter.com/nD2cVmpDyh

— Resolution Foundation (@resfoundation) September 20, 2024

Businesses will always find a way, especially if the government’s “in the hands of Tories, donors and Cayman Island hedge funds”

Labour’s Michael Foot once said:

we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier…

The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.

Indeed, the FT reported just before Labour conference that “many businesses could sidestep Labour’s upgrade” anyway.

One key issue is that there are three employment statuses today in Britain, with intermediate “limb (b) workers” in limbo with Labour’s plans. To make sure Labour’s changes don’t “backfire”, experts say, there need to be only two employment statuses – “workers and the self-employed”. But Labour is not planning to make that change any time soon. And as a result, employers will be “able to exploit grey areas”.

The government has also compromised already on the “day one rights” promise. This was, the FT said, “one of the most controversial elements” for businesses in the government’s plans. And behind the scenes at Labour conference, it seems the plan is now to give businesses “up to six months” before they really have to respect new workers’ rights.

Even small improvements for workers would obviously be welcome. But with union figures worried already about Labour trying to “silence the voice of pensioners, workers and communities” and being “in the hands of Tories, donors and Cayman Island hedge funds”, even small improvements may turn out to be a big ask.

Featured image via the Canary