UNIONS called for a raft of new measures to tackle low wages as they warned individual workplace rights in the Employment Rights Bill “can only take us so far.”

Delegates passed a motion at TUC Congress today calling on the union body to lobby Labour to build on the new deal for workers and “remove significant legal and structural barriers to trade union organisation, collective bargaining [and] extending sectoral bargaining agreements in this parliament to address growing work and wealth inequality.

“This will include resisting attempts to weaken the provisions of Employment Rights Bill, particularly in relation to issues of recognition and balloting for industrial action.”

The TUC is set to unveil “concrete steps“ for a plan to introduce sectoral level agreements in at least three sectors, calling on Labour to fulfil its pledge of the “greatest number of in-sourcings in a generation,” starting with the Civil Service.