On Wednesday Owen Smith announced his Workplace Manifesto, which details his plan to deliver a revolution in workers’ rights. These measures will make Britain the envy of the world for employment rights and job security - under Owen’s leadership real change will be made.
Below are each of Owen’s commitments, with the steps needed to achieve them.
Improve collective Trade Union rights
1. Strengthen union recognition rights to provide for recognition where majority support is clear.
2. Provide mandatory access arrangements to workplaces for trade unions where requested by workers.
3. Amend the law to remove unfair obstacles to industrial action, unfair time limits, and opportunities to use injunctions to obstruct democratic votes. Ensure law complies with ILO standards.
4. End use of sweetheart unions to avoid recognition.
5. Modernise balloting with e-balloting to increase participation.
6. Repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 immediately on taking office
Improve individual rights for working people
1. Introduce Day One employment rights.
2. Enhance definition of “worker” in employment law, to outlaw bogus selfemployment, strengthen rights and address agency labour issues.
3. Outlaw exclusively foreign recruitment.
4. Require all workers to receive a statement of rights, pay, hours, living wage
and average wage.
5. Outlaw zero hours contracts.
6. Introduce compensation for cancelled shifts.
7. Restore access to justice for workers by abolishing fees for Employment
8. Strengthen enforcement of the National Living Wage.
9. Strengthen enforcement of Health and Safety legislation, including restoring civil liability for breach of regulations and restore Health and Safety protection for self employed workers.
Ensuring a voice for people at work
1. Worker representation on all Remuneration Committees.
2. Information and Consultation rules to apply to companies of over 50 employees without restrictive trigger requirements.
3. Protect Works Councils in larger companies in the event of a Tory Brexit by introducing Works Councils with similar powers and composition (including trade union reps where present) to all companies with over 500 employees
Strengthen collective bargaining
1. Introduce Modern Wages Councils to cover 9 million workers in Hospitality, Retail and Social Care. Membership of Councils would be balanced between employers, TU reps and workers. Responsibilities would include to negotiate minimum terms and conditions, gender and race equality, access for disabled workers and at least a living wage in the sector.
2. Provide a legal framework for voluntary sectoral collective bargaining in other sectors with universally applicable wage rates and provide tax and investment
incentives to encourage participation in such voluntary sectoral arrangements.
3. Restore full collective bargaining and end pay freezes in the public sector. National pay bargaining to continue in Health, Local Government and Education
and to be restored in the Civil Service - with Pay Review Board decisions to be respected. Require contracted out services to pay comparable rates.
Achieving lasting equality
1. New Equal Pay legislation, to close the gender pay gap.
2. Simplify the enforcement of equality law and abolish fees for Employment Tribunals.
3. Reintroduce discrimination questionnaires and employments rights from Day One, for workers with protected characteristics including pregnant women, older and young workers, LGBT workers and disabled workers.
4. Require publication of race equality plans for all companies over a certain size.
5. Require publication of the highest and lowest rates of pay for all companies with over 20 employees
Protecting workers rights after the EU referendum
1. Defend workers’ rights in the Brexit negotiation process, where UK labour law and Heath and Safety regulations directly flow from our EU membership.
2. Insist on a seat at the table for Labour in the negotiation process.
3. Put the terms of the Brexit deal to the British people in a second referendum or at a General Election for their final say
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