LABOUR’S Employment Rights Bill is expected to become law this October, once it passes through the final stages of the House of Lords and receives Royal Assent. For the past year and a half, many prominent figures in the trade union movement have lauded the Bill as the “biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation.”

This may be true; however, once the track record of the governments in the last four decades is considered, the bar for progressive employment rights legislation could not be any lower.

A single shift spent in precarious conditions, on minimum wage, in a sector with low union density, like social care or hospitality, would likely be enough to change the mind of even the most optimistic union leaders.

It is deeply concerning that some of the positive changes that survived the watering down of the Employment Rights Bill are not expected to come into force until 2027.

The measures proceeding at this glacial pace include the introduction of protection from unfair dismissal from day one, protections from blacklisting, and the new laws banning some zero-hours contracts (ZHCs).

Coming into effect more than halfway into Labour’s first term in government in 15 years, this will leave millions of people, predominantly young and in insecure work, without crucial employment protections for at least another 16 months.

One major area of weakness in the Bill is the failure to fully tackle precarious employment models — such as ZHCs — and the scourge of the gig economy, false classification of self-employment for exploited workers, and the widespread use of agency labour.

Young workers make up over half of the hospitality sector, and workers aged 16-24 make up less than 4 per cent of total trade union members. It’s clear that a generation of young workers is being forced into undignified and precarious working conditions, alongside an existential decline in engagement with trade unions, and Labour’s Employment Rights Bill barely scratches the surface.

Despite the low level of education on employment rights, 76 per cent of young workers would choose secure hours if offered them, a damning indictment of the government’s failure to commit to the banning of all ZHCs.

The growth of precarious and transient forms of employment, much of which has occurred in the vacuum left by the outsourcing and fragmentation of British industry, has helped to create a generation of workers who are alienated at work and disillusioned in their communities.

Many of these young workers, legitimately angered and frustrated by a system that makes them feel powerless, are ripe targets for Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Anyone who spends time in their local community will have felt this, whether at work, the pub, the football, or the gym.

When Reform is consistently ahead in national polls, having won control of 10 councils in the May local elections, the government takes a political risk by choosing not to eliminate insecure employment models.

The power needed to beat the far right exists in the hands of organised workers, who can stem the tide of alienated young working-class people drifting to Reform through the demonstration of class power that comes with the flexing of the industrial muscle of organised labour.

Alongside the decades-long assault on communities, through deindustrialisation, privatisation, and austerity, the organisations most able to preserve and develop industrial and community power have been shackled by countless restrictions.

The Labour government can help resist the appeal of the populist right by removing all the shackles on the trade unions, not just the ones most recently applied.

The government must move further and faster on workers’ rights, and unions must be on the front lines of these demands.

The Institute of Employment Rights, Campaign for Trade Union Freedom, and Strike Map are calling for trade unionists to demand a second Employment Rights Bill, that goes further in repealing anti-union laws and ending all restrictions on industrial action, full compliance with international labour standards, a full ban on ZHCs, a single worker status and a statutory right to collective bargaining for all. Add your name to the calls for a second Employment Rights Bill at www.bit.ly/ERBill25.

We must also recognise that those who place all hope in top-down, legislative changes from the state, while neglecting the development of organising strategies for the industrial landscape of the 21st century, are making a severe mistake.

The recent victory of young workers at Village Hotel in Glasgow, who took strike action this August and won a 10 per cent pay increase backdated to April 2024, and an end to ZHCs, shows that three weeks of industrial action is more effective at securing an end to insecure working conditions than three years of a Labour government.

Rebuilding density across all sectors, especially the most precarious and unorganised, is a crucial step for trade unions. This must take place alongside the renewal of effective strategies for building workplace power and workplace-adjacent community organising, and relearning tactics like the mass picket.

With the possibility of a Reform government on the horizon, workers and trade unionists must prove successful in these tasks to safeguard the future of the movement and ensure resilience against the many threats we face.