A SPIRITED debate on trade union and employment rights kicked off Unite’s policy conference in Brighton today, with delegates slamming the Labour government’s failure to keep its promises.

London & Eastern region delegate Nancy Taaffe denounced the Labour council attacking bin workers in the Birmingham bin dispute.

Likewise, workers at Devon County Council “have been forced into the same plight,” she said. “One thousand of them are facing fire and rehire under a Labour government… it’s a disgrace.”

She highlighted that despite the Labour government’s promises, one year into their tenure in power, zero-hours contracts are still legal.

“[These] contracts are used to employ scab labour to break the Birmingham bin workers,” she said.

“Post Office lorry drivers who delivered the vaccine during the pandemic — many of them are on zero-hours contracts, are still on zero-hours contracts.”

She argued that the Labour government can and has rushed through emergency legislation when it wants, but thresholds on industrial ballots introduced under a previous Tory government remain in place.

“We’re told some parts of the [employment rights] Bill will be introduced in 2027,” she said. “This is a joke — yet no-one is laughing.

“We need to be linked to a party that reverses all the rotten trade union legislation put in place over the last 14 years.”

This would free unions to do what they do best, she added — to organise productively to achieve the aims of raising pay, securing jobs, giving permanent work to people, and raising living standards.

“Let’s organise to bin the anti-trade union legislation and then we will be free to fight more effectively,” Ms Taaffe concluded.

The composite was carried.