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AAs workers, families and companies negotiate the toughest moments of this pandemic, trying to stay safe, take care of their children, fulfill their job responsibilities and keep their companies afloat, we now discover that the thoughts of some ministers are in other part. Now, in this post-Brexit Britain, they are planning their vision for the future.
Unfortunately, it is one that threatens to make our deep injustices worse. That future means that ministers contemplate the possibility of breaking hard-won workers’ rights: from the safety limit that protects people from having to work more than 48 hours a week, which is vital for key workers. Such as those of the NHS, transport and airlines. – to undermine paid vacations, work breaks and other protections.
Ministers have promised time and again that they have no plans to diminish workers’ rights, and they continue to stay in line after this latest revelation about their plans, but it has not been denied that these specific proposals are on the table and in the works. course. consideration. In fact, we must be clear that the key question is not whether they want to back down on workers’ rights, of course they do.
After all, this is the deregulated race to the bottom they have long dreamed of. The new trade secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, even co-wrote a full brochure in which he proposed exempting start-ups from labor law, moving away from the national minimum wage so that it could be lower in some areas of the country. Elsewhere, he co-authored a book memorably asserting that the British are “among the worst lazy in the world.” The government has failed to introduce the jobs bill that it promised would protect and enhance workers ‘rights, and Boris Johnson himself explained frivolously just late last year that keeping workers’ rights really just means not sending to children to fireplaces.
It’s worth taking a step back here and understanding what this all means. Our country is ravaged by profound inequality, injustice and powerlessness. From the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath to the pandemic, we have seen these injustices graphically exposed. But today we have a conservative government that still thinks that the way to tackle this situation is to take rights away from those who have few and worsen power imbalances in our workplaces.
Take the experience of the pandemic. We have seen some workers feel unable to ensure their own safety, scared of filing complaints, and forced to report to the office despite government instructions to work from home. The government would aggravate this impotence.
The scourge of low wages and insecure work did not happen because workers are inactive, as Kwarteng believes, or because our labor markets are overly regulated. Quite the opposite. We are among the most deregulated labor markets in advanced countries, and millions of workers in the UK already work long hours.
What is emerging is not a new vision of Britain at all, but simply more of what the Conservatives have tried and failed in the past four decades. What an unambitious, pessimistic and negative vision of our country they have, believing that the way to compete and succeed is with low wages and few rights. This is the wrong priority for Britain and far out of step with the priorities of the British people. Just as it hasn’t worked before, it won’t work this time.
There is a different path for our country. The pandemic has imposed enormous hardships on workers and their families in the UK. When we get out of this emergency, we cannot return to normalcy. We owe it to them to build a better and fairer future for Britain.
It is not the workers who live in fear or are forced to work so long that they cannot see their families that makes a country successful; it is the workers who feel safe and secure. And it is companies that value their employees and foster a positive work environment, with the best terms and conditions for their workers, including the recognition of the need for families to balance their emotional and work lives.
Of the countless companies that I have spoken to during this crisis, none have told me that the priority for recovery is to smash the rights of workers. Many of them recognize the profound injustices of our country and that we will be more productive or fairer not by competing with low wages and low rights, but by raising standards and investing in the infrastructure, skills and industries of the future – a career. up, not a race down.
In fact, in the worst of times, during the pandemic, we have seen a spirit in which we can build: companies and unions working together for the benefit of companies and the country, many companies striving to do the right thing for their workers. , and a spirit of mutual help. This spirit of union and cooperation is a world away from the harsh and unregulated vision that ministers want to serve.
The real question in the coming months is not whether the government wants to weaken worker protections, but whether it can get away with it. Progressive businesses, unions, workers and families know that this is not the right future for our country. This is a fight about who we are as a country, who we want to be, and whether we build a Britain that works for individuals and families or not. It is a fight that we cannot and will not lose.
• Ed Miliband is the Doncaster North Labor MP and shadow secretary for business, energy and industry
