WHEN Labour introduced the Employment Rights Bill earlier this year, it was rightly hailed as the most significant expansion of workplace protections in a generation.

After decades of Tory governments hollowing out the rights of working people, and after the long years of falling wages, casualisation and insecurity, the Bill offered hope that work in Britain could once again mean security, dignity and fairness.

But in the last month, the House of Lords has shown us exactly why we cannot take progress for granted.

Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers, many of them hereditary legislators with no democratic mandate, have done their utmost to frustrate and weaken the Bill.

On July 18, they voted through amendments that strike at the very heart of Labour’s promise to end the scourge of insecure work.

Where the government had required employers to offer a guaranteed-hours contract after a regular pattern of work, the Lords changed this into a mere “right to request” — forcing workers to go cap in hand to their bosses for what should be a basic guarantee.

Worse still, they carved out an exemption to allow employers to cancel shifts without compensation, leaving workers to absorb the cost of lost income and wasted childcare arrangements.

This is not balance. It is not flexibility. It is a licence for bad bosses to continue exploiting their staff.

As Usdaw and the Institute for Employment Rights have both made clear, these amendments gut the intent of the Bill and risk leaving workers little better off than before. A “right to request” means nothing when workers live under the shadow of managerial coercion.

Nor did the Tory-Lib Dem wrecking job stop there. In late July, further amendments were passed: restoring the 50 per cent turnout threshold for strike ballots, delaying unfair dismissal protection until six months into a job, and undermining terms for school support staff.

All this from parties that were trounced at the ballot box last year, clinging on through unelected peers to obstruct a Labour manifesto mandate.

Let’s be clear — these amendments are not about constructive scrutiny. They are about defending a low-pay, low-rights economic model that has failed millions. They are about protecting the ability of exploitative employers to keep zero-hours contracts, fire and rehire and casualised labour as permanent features of our economy.

That is why Labour must now be absolutely resolute. When the Bill returns to the Commons this September, we must reject these regressive Lords amendments in full.

Working people voted overwhelmingly for a new deal at work. To falter now would be to betray them.

But there is also a deeper lesson here. The resistance from the Conservatives and Lib Dems shows that any gains for working people will always be contested by vested interests.

If rights are introduced half-heartedly, or with loopholes, or left vulnerable to reversal, they will be attacked and eroded at the first opportunity. That is why our reforms must be embedded as firmly and irreversibly as possible.

The trade union movement has recognised this. The motions proposed to the TUC Congress this September reflect a sober understanding that while the Employment Rights Bill marks progress, it still leaves gaps — and those gaps will be exploited unless we close them.

The National Education Union’s (NEU) motion rightly insists that organising the unorganised, removing barriers to recognition, and building sectoral bargaining structures are essential to make these rights real in practice.

The Prison Officers Association (POA) points out the continued injustice that prison officers remain denied the basic human right to strike, even under a Labour government.

And the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) motion speaks for many of us on the left when it warns that the Bill prioritises individual rights over collective ones, leaves dangerous loopholes on fire and rehire and zero-hours contracts, and delays reforms far longer than workers can afford.

Their call for a strengthened Bill — banning exploitative contracts outright, repealing every anti-union law, and enshrining collective bargaining — deserves serious attention.

What unites these motions is the recognition that the Employment Rights Bill, though historic, cannot be the final word. We need not just a floor of minimum rights but a new settlement built on strong unions, sectoral agreements, and the power of collective action.

Labour was elected to deliver a new deal for working people, and the public overwhelmingly back it — as polling for the TUC has shown, including among Tory and Lib Dem voters themselves.

We cannot allow unelected peers, lobbying on behalf of bad bosses, to thwart that mandate. Nor can we be content with halfway measures that leave workers still begging for the basics.

This autumn, as the Bill enters its final stages, Labour must stand firm, overturn the Lords’ sabotage, and strengthen the legislation where the unions demand it.

But there are other steps we need to take.

My amendments at the Commons report stage proposed to restore some of the key issues from the New Deal for Working People which were omitted from the Bill or postponed for future attention.

The most notable being the omission to introduce a single status worker so as to eradicate bogus self employment that means fragility and insecurity for far too many workers.

The government made an excellent start in resolving industrial disputes in the public sector and delivering much needed uplifts in pay but the legitimate demand for pay restoration remains and I’d encourage the government to set that out as an objective.

And part of delivering for working people is in the implementation of the biggest programme of insourcing in a generation as we promised at the election.

We can point to the railways where that has started to happen and where we need to get the transfer of staff into the public sector right. But there is so much more to do and the government could start with bringing back in house security cleaning and maintenance in its own buildings and terminating the contract of Serco for the tagging of prisoners which has so shamefully failed.

If we are bold, we can not only reverse decades of decline but lock in gains so securely that no future Tory or Lib Dem wreckers can strip them away again.

That is the task before us — and we must seize it with both hands.

Andy McDonald is Labour member of Parliament for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East.