Workers’ rights after Brexit

While the millions of people who voted to leave the EU in June may have had various reasons for choosing Brexit, one thing is certain – wiping out workers’ rights and protections was certainly not one of them.

Much was made of prime minister Theresa May’s speech at the Tory Party conference last month, when she said, “And let me be absolutely clear: existing workers’ legal rights will continue to be guaranteed in law – and they will be guaranteed as long as I am prime minister.”

Business secretary Greg Clarke followed suit, noting in last night’s (November 7) Commons debate over workers’ rights post-Brexit that all employment protections derived from the EU would be transposed into British law, under a future Great Repeal Bill.

“We will be using the legislation before this House to entrench all existing workers’ rights in British law, whatever the future relationship that the UK has with the EU,” he said yesterday.

Many may have considered the matter closed – that the latest government reassurances can put workers’ doubts over losing to entitlements such as sick pay and maternity leave to rest.

But as the debate continued, it became clear that there still remains plenty of scope for the government to reduce workers’ rights under Brexit.

Fundamentally untrustworthy

Labour MP Clive Lewis, leading the opposition in the debate, argued that the Tory government was fundamentally untrustworthy over workers’ rights, considering its history.

“They have frozen public sector pay for six years running,” he pointed out. “They have introduced fees for employment tribunals, making it harder for people to gain access to the rights to which the law entitles them; they have placed severe restrictions on the right to strike, and onerous burdens on the ability to organise. In the trade union Act 2016, they have pushed through the biggest attack on workers’ rights in a generation.

“Is it any wonder that, for those of us who genuinely care about workers’ rights, the promises that the secretary of state has made today provide only cold comfort and a heavy dose of wary scepticism?”

Labour MP Melanie Onn pointed to the fact that the government “has stopped short of offering a commitment to primary legislation to protect workers’ rights.

‘Cause for concern’

“That gives me continuing cause for concern. The great repeal Bill will not protect all existing workers’ rights,” she said. “It will leave them in a much more vulnerable position.”

Indeed, a House of Commons Library briefing paper on employment law post-Brexit makes the point clear – even if EU employment rights and protections are transposed into UK law, they’re newly susceptible to being changed and revoked, either by this government or successive ones.

Another important source of worker protections is derived from European Court of Justice rulings – from case law instead of legislation, a point Labour MPs highlighted in last night’s debate.

What would happen to these rulings, which include giving care workers the right to full pay for sleep-in shifts; saying that holiday pay must take account of overtime and commission payments – a an entitlement which Unite actually helped secure for UK workers  – and the ruling that travel time is working time among others?

Without doubt, they would all cease to apply, Onn noted. Labour MP Matthew Pennycook agreed.

“The Prime Minister has been clear that her vision of Brexit involves the UK leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice,” he pointed out.

As ever, Brexit minister David Jones – who last week responded to a written question from Pennycook over EU employment law post-Brexit by saying simply that EU law would become UK law “whenever practical” – ended the debate with vague promises.

Over whether European Court of Justice rulings would still apply, he said only that the UK government’s “starting position” would be to transpose all EU-derived law into UK law.

Answering to fears voiced by opposition MPs who argued that EU workers’ rights and protections, even if they were all adopted into UK law, are still susceptible to being eroded by future governments, Jones said it was out of this government’s hands.

“I must point out to him that no Parliament can bind its successors,” he said.

So while the headlines have repeatedly trumpeted prime minister Theresa May’s mantra that hers is the party of working people, and that EU employment rights and protections would be preserved at all costs, the devil is, as ever, in the details.

No such guarantees

What we thought were cast iron guarantees for workers’ rights are no such guarantees at all.

Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke argued that the union will not rest until the government gives full guarantees that EU employment rights and protections will be preserved in in their entirety.

“Our position is that all rights should be grandfathered in and anchored down in perpetuity – we cannot have any sunset clauses that aim to eventually water down these regulations under present or future governments.”

Burke pointed to the various rights we enjoy under the EU that we’ve come to take for granted.

“Thanks to the EU, we’ve had the right to meal breaks and breaks between shifts; we’ve had paid maternity and paternity leave; we’re guaranteed the right to be informed, consulted and protected when our company is being taken over by another company – these are very basic rights that we must protect for UK workers in any future outside the EU.

“Let’s not forget also that – in a country like the UK where the growth of temporary, insecure work has exploded – it is through the EU that agency and part-time workers are given protections too.

“The Tories have tried to get rid of all these fundamentally important rights for years – at this crucial junction in our history, we as a union simply will not accept their erosion.”

Find out more about Unite’s Brexit strategy here.