Union leader Sharon Graham says Keir Starmer risks ‘limping into Downing Street’
Labour’s biggest union backer has warned it may divert election funding earmarked for the party, amid claims that Keir Starmer is diluting plans to overhaul workers’ rights.
In an interview with the Observer, Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, said the Labour leader risked “limping into Downing Street” if he backed down in the face of intense lobbying from businesses.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Revised proposals will allow employees to choose a zero-hour option, prompting fears of undue pressure from employers
Labour is facing criticism over plans for a loophole that would allow employees to work under zero-hours contracts, despite the party having pledged to ban them entirely.
Keir Starmer’s party is preparing to announce details of its promise to overhaul workers’ rights if it gets into power – a centrepiece of its early plans for government, but subject to fierce lobbying from businesses.
Continue reading...Party says it is committed to policies such as zero-hours ban after peer warned against ‘rushing’ changes
Labour has said it will keep its ban on zero-hours jobs and improvements to workers’ rights after the party peer Peter Mandelson warned against “rushing” through changes championed by trade unions.
Anneliese Dodds, the Labour chair, said the party was committed to the package to “make work pay” and get more money into people’s pockets, but that it would “continue to discuss” the plans with business and unions.
Continue reading...According to ONS data, there are now nearly 300,000 people aged 50 or over in insecure employment
Zero-hours contracts among the over-50s have reached their highest level since records began, according to new analysis of official government statistics.
There are nearly 300,000 people aged 50 and older with zero-hours contracts, the highest number for this age group since records began in 2013 and almost double the number 10 years ago, from 149,000 in October to December 2013 to 296,000 in July to September 2022.
Continue reading...Union organisation criticises Tory ‘litany of failures on workers’ rights’ five years on from Taylor review
The Trades Union Congress has criticised the Conservative party for “a litany of failures on workers’ rights” as it published analysis showing a rise in insecure jobs in the five years since the government pledged to make work in the UK fairer.
At least 3.7 million people in Britain are in insecure jobs, up from 3.6m in 2021, out of a total workforce of 34 million, according to analysis of government data by the TUC. That compares to 3.2 million in late 2016, before the publication of the Taylor review, a landmark government-backed report on work in the UK.
Continue reading...Figures obtained by GMB show safety at its UK warehouses could be worsening
More than 600 Amazon workers have been seriously injured or narrowly escaped an accident in the past three years, prompting calls for a parliamentary inquiry into safety at the online retailer’s vast UK warehouses.
Amazon, whose largest shareholder is the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, recently launched an advertising campaign fronted by contented staff members, after a string of embarrassing revelations about working conditions.
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