Len McCluskey, general secretary of the country’s biggest union, Unite, has called on Theresa May to bring forth immediate proposals to show that she will honour her pledge to protect workers’ rights once the UK leaves the European Union.
In a statement released yesterday (Thursday the 30th) McCluskey also urged the prime minister to reassure the British public that the enormous powers – so-called ‘Henry VIII’ powers – she will have at her disposal during the Great Repeal bill process will not be abused to worsen the lives of working people.
The prime minister has said that all existing employment rights deriving from the EU, including such measures as the working time directive, will be transferred over to UK law with the government retaining the right to modify at some later stage.
However, Len McCluskey, the union’s general secretary, says that this `modification’ threat is causing serious concern among Unite’s members, particularly as comments from leading Tory figures, such as Liam Fox, reveal a wish to see rights reduced.
To counter workers’ fears that elements of the Conservative party are seeking to create a lower wage, poorer protections UK out of Europe, Len McCluskey is calling for a 66 percent threshold for the removal of any EU legislation to be established.
This is modelled on the threshold needed to call a general election out-with the fixed five year term parliament.
Len McCluskey said: “However people voted in the referendum, they did not vote to be worse off. That includes being easier to mistreat at work. UK workers are already the cheapest and easiest to sack in Europe, a shameful state of affairs for an advanced economy. To this the government must not add that UK workers are the easiest to exploit.
“Let’s build on a precedent that the House of Commons has already accepted – the two-thirds majority needed to secure an election under fixed-term parliament legislation – to put in place similar hurdles that must be cleared before any EU-derived law can be wiped from the UK statute books once transferred over.
“Sadly, there are too many on the Conservative benches who see Brexit as their moment to destroy employment rights for unions to simply accept the prime minister’s word that the status quo will endure.”
Len McCluskey also challenged the prime minister to use the Great Repeal bill to improve working life for millions of UK workers by banning the use of umbrella companies set up to limit the liability of employment agencies and to outlaw the use of exclusivity clauses in any work contract providing fewer than 35 hours a week employment to a worker.
He said: “One of the lessons to take for the referendum vote last year was that people did not feel that they were getting a fair deal, especially at work. The prime minister must signal that she gets that message by strengthening the now creaky floor under millions of temporary workers.
“Banning the use of umbrella companies set up to allow agencies to swerve their employment duties to workers and outlawing the `exclusivity clauses’ which make an agency worker at the behest of their agency but with no guarantee of a secure wage in return would restore some security and fairness to the increasingly uncertain world working people find themselves in.”
