How Labour's New Deal for Working People will transform the world of work.

We know it’s tough for working people and their families at the moment. The price of everything is increasing – from fuel, to energy bills, to the weekly shop – but incomes haven’t been keeping up. To top it off, the government seems more interested in delivering the distractions and gimmicks they think will win them an election, rather than tackling the cost of living crisis they created.

The Tories promised a high-wage economy, but the brutal reality is they’ve overseen more than a decade of flatlining and falling pay, while work has become even more insecure. The Tories have broken Britain, and we’re all paying the price.

The contrast with the Labour Party’s plans couldn’t be clearer. Labour’s New Deal for Working People, drawn up in partnership with Labour’s affiliated trade unions (of which GMB is a founding member), is a comprehensive plan to improve the lives of working people by strengthening individual and collective rights – raising wages and improving working conditions.

The Labour Party has committed and reaffirmed that they’ll introduce this plan to Parliament within the first 100 days of a Labour Government taking office. This is one of their highest priorities.

The New Deal for Working People will address some of the most pressing issues that our members have fought against for too long:

• Labour will strengthen rights at work for all workers, from day one on the job, and ensure all workers are entitled to basic rights and protections like sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave, flexible working, and protection against unfair dismissal. They’ll remove the qualifying period for basic rights at work – so everyone is protected from their first day on the job. They will also strengthen workplace rights and protections for those who are self-employed.

• Labour will end fire and rehire so workers can be safe in the knowledge that terms and conditions negotiated in good faith can’t be ripped up under threat of dismissal.

• Labour will make work more family-friendly, and make it easier to balance work with home, community, and family life. Labour is committed to achieving a better work-life balance for all workers. They’ll review and improve maternity and paternity leave and the shared parental leave system as well as guarantee paid family and carers’ leave. Labour will make flexible working a day one right for all workers and bring in a new ‘right to switch off’ outside of working hours.

• Labour will ban zero-hours contracts and ensure everyone has the right to regular hours they can rely on. All workers will have the right to a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, reasonable notice of any changes in shifts and fair compensation for cancelled and curtailed shifts.

• Labour will strengthen trade union rights, raising pay and conditions. We know that unionised workplaces are more likely to provide decent pay, good training, and benefits. That’s why Labour will repeal the Trade-Union Act and the new anti-strike laws, and why they’ll update trade union legislation to remove unnecessary restrictions on trade union activities. They’ll also introduce new rights to help unions recruit, organise and win better deals for their members.

• Labour will reverse the decades-long decline in collective bargaining, using Fair Pay Agreements to drive up pay and conditions. Labour believes strong collective bargaining rights are key to tackling problems of insecurity, inequality, and low pay. Labour will begin in adult social care, introducing a new Fair Pay Agreement that is negotiated through sectoral collective bargaining, to empower workers, their trade unions and their employers to agree fair pay and conditions for all care workers. Labour will also assess how Fair Pay Agreements could benefit other sectors of the economy.

We need a government that will deliver for workers too – enshrining the rights that individual workers should be able to rely on, giving unions new rights to help them organise and win for their members, and crucially putting power back in the hands of working people.

Working people need better rights, stronger unions and a Labour Government to win the new deal at work they deserve.

If you would like to read Labour’s New Deal for Working People in full, you can find it on the Labour Unions website here: www.labourunions.org.uk/newdeal

If you would like more information on GMB London’s political campaigning and how you can get involved, please contact Dan Anderson on dan.anderson@gmb.org.uk

Promoted by GMB union, 22 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HD