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Belated plans to end massive pay-offs and rehashed promises to boost low wages will be unveiled in the Queen’s speech, the Con-Dem government revealed yesterday.
Ms Windsor will unveil a government drive to cut redundancy payments to sacked public-sector leaders in her speech to Parliament on Wednesday.
The Tories are angry that high-earning civil servants and NHS executives dismissed with bumper redundancy payouts return to similar jobs within 12 months.
A crackdown on employers who are failing to pay even the minimum wage and a pledge to allow workers to pool savings and cash in “collective pensions” for the first time are among other announcements expected.
Labour said the Tories are turning on their own civil servants in a “belated” attempt to mop up a problem of their own making.
A stunning 4,000 staff in the NHS alone have been rehired after being chopped in the government’s health service cull at a cost of £1.4bn to taxpayers, the party pointed out.
Claims Britain is being led by a “zombie government” also gained momentum as it was revealed old minimum-wage enforcement plans will be reannounced.
Shadow trade minister Ian Murray said: “The Tory-led government cruelly misled hard-working families by raising hopes and promising to raise the national minimum wage to £7 — then failing to deliver at a time when families are being hit by a cost-of-living crisis.
“The next Labour government will act to make work pay and restore living standards where the value of the minimum wage has been eroded in recent years.”
Plaid Cymru also set out its alternative plans to “protect and empower workers” in its Queen’s speech.
“Workable measures” that would form part of the party’s Employment Rights Bill include plans to scrap zero-hours contracts, establish a commission to examine how to roll out the living wage and give employees places on company boards.
Arfon MP Hywel Williams said: “As the coalition pursues its austerity agenda, workers’ rights are being eroded one by one.
“The Queen’s Speech offers the government an opportunity to bring forward proposals to strengthen the economy and tackle the soaring cost of living.”
lukejames@peoples-press.com
Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP
The Bill addresses some exploitation but leaves trade unions heavily regulated, most workers without collective bargaining coverage, and fails to tackle the balance of power that enables constant mutation of bad practice, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
The BBC and OBR claim that failing to cut disability benefits could ‘destabilise the economy’ while ignoring the spendthrift approach to tens of billions on military spending that really spirals out of control, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP
