TORY and Reform MPs showed their “true colours” when they voted against the Employment Rights Bill, the TUC said today after the landmark legislation passed its second reading in the Commons.
The Bill’s key policies are backed by a majority of people who voted for the right-wing parties, polling for the union federation found in July.
The measures include protection against unfair dismissal from day one of a new job, rights to sick pay and partial bans on fire and rehire and zero-hours contracts.
Commenting after the legislation passed its second reading on Monday night, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “The Conservatives and Reform have shown their true colours.
“Instead of voting to make work pay, they have voted to deny working people vital protections and rights at work.
“At a time when millions are trapped in low-paid and insecure work, the Tories and Reform have chosen to stand on the side of exploitative working practices like zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire.
“Their anti-worker agendas have no place in modern Britain and are completely out of touch with the public mood.”
Labour MP Ian Lavery added: “The Employment Rights Bill is a major step towards reversing the anti-democratic, anti-working class legacy of the Tories.”
However, during the Commons debate, left MP John McDonnell raised the fact that the legislation makes no mention of insourcing and warned of strikes across government departments.
The former shadow chancellor, who is currently suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party for having voted to lift the two-child benefit cap, said the Bill’s proposed reforms to procurement should “bring forward insourcing as soon as possible, because outsourcing has produced an insecure, low-paid form of employment which has already resulted in industrial strife.”
He also pledged to put an amendment to the legislation to lift the ban on strikes by prison officers in England and Wales.
The prohibition was originally introduced by John Major’s Conservative government in 1994.
Though repealed by Labour in 2001, when a voluntary agreement was put in its place, the ban was reimposed in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 by then home secretary Jack Straw.
Prison Officers Association general secretary Steve Gillan called on the government last week to remove the “disgraceful stain … which prevents our members from taking any form of industrial action.”
