LABOUR’S workers’ rights policy risks becoming a “bad bosses charter,” the leader of one of its biggest affiliates warned at the weekend.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham called out fresh backsliding on the party’s central New Deal for Working People policy.

She said that Labour’s “again revised new deal for working people has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.”

The number of caveats and get-outs means it is in danger of becoming a “bad bosses’ charter,” she said.

Ms Graham said: “Working people expect Labour to be their voice. 

“They need to know that Labour will not back down to corporate profiteers determined to maintain the status quo of colossal profits at the expense of everyone else.

“The country desperately needs a Labour government but the party must show it will stick to its guns on improving workers’ rights.  Fire-and-rehire is abhorrent and must be banned – no ifs, no buts.

“Unite will continue to call out any row backs on the policy.”

It has appeared that concerns over the further dilution of the policy had been allayed after a meeting between party leader Sir Keir Starmer and union leaders, including Ms Graham, 12 days ago.

There it was agreed that Labour would stick to the already somewhat-weakened plan agreed at last year’s national policy forum.

But union sources confirmed that there is now a belief that on the critical issues of scrapping zero-hours contracts and banning the nefarious practice of fire-and-rehire, there have been fresh concessions to the business lobby, which Labour has been determined to appease.

They stressed that negotiations with the party were continuing and that Ms Graham’s warnings should be understood in that context.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, who heads up Labour’s militantly pro-business wing, said she was “sorry that Sharon feels like that but we do have the support of our trade union colleagues and I believe that this is the biggest-ever extension of workplace rights.”

She added: “We will end fire and rehire which has seen companies... sack all their staff and then try and bring them back on worse contracts.

“That is deplorable and we will not allow that to happen.”

The row cast a shadow over Labour’s weekend campaigning, which otherwise saw Ms Reeves pledge that Labour would not “return to austerity” while committing to keeping taxes low, but not to scrapping the two-child benefit gap.