{"id":29107,"date":"2021-06-08T15:55:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T14:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=29107"},"modified":"2021-06-09T10:06:15","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T09:06:15","slug":"just-not-good-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=29107","title":{"rendered":"‘Just not good enough’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite and other unions have warned that a new employment rights enforcement agency announced by the government falls far short of what is needed to truly protect workers from exploitation and abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite has said that without addressing the single biggest threat to workers today \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the plague of fire and rehire \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the new body will be cold comfort to the tens of thousands of workers who are facing an all-out assault on their wages and conditions by big name employers, as the government stands idly by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘One stop shop’?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Announced today (June 8) by business minister Paul Scully, the new government watchdog will bring together three existing bodies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and HMRC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s National Minimum Wage Enforcement \u00e2\u20ac\u201c under one umbrella agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new body\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remit will include enforcing laws on the minimum wage, modern slavery and agency work. The government has claimed that creating a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098one-stop shop\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 will improve enforcement of employment laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Unite has said that far from being innovative solutions to match the\u00c2\u00a0mounting problems for workers, today’s announced\u00c2\u00a0plans are in fact a reheating of former prime minister Theresa May\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discarded proposals.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite noted they\u00c2\u00a0fail to extend the gangmasters regulations into other sectors of the economy, such as construction, which unions have long said must happen to truly\u00c2\u00a0tackle worker exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics also highlighted that the government cannot be trusted on enforcement when it has for years slashed budgets of work-related enforcement agencies. A report last year from Unchecked UK<\/a> found that Health and Safety Executive (HSE) funding had plummeted by 58 per cent over the last decade, while staff numbers had been slashed by more than a third over the same time period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding for the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which will be merged into the new body announced today — has fallen by 49 per cent in the last ten years. The same agency has also seen 57 per cent reduction in staff numbers over the last decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unchecked UK researchers spoke to a former HSE officer who said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Health and Safety Executive has faced huge cuts over the last decade. This has impacted both enforcement and effectiveness. We were told to cut proactive inspections \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which we did \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and this obviously makes it harder to catch workplace abuses, such as the Leicester factory scandal.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fire and rehire<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the government has failed at every turn in taking action on fire and rehire, where employers sack workers and rehire them on worse pay and conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Announcing the new employment enforcement agency today (June 8), business minister Paul Scully touched on fire and rehire but again failed to indicate that the government would do anything about the pernicious employment practice now sweeping UK workplaces amid the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scully said today that while \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe Government wants to send a crystal clear message to employers that all options must be exhausted before considering dismissal and reengagement of staff\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, he noted that fire and rehire was \u00e2\u20ac\u015bclearly a complex issue\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and there were circumstances where \u00e2\u20ac\u015bemployers may feel they need to dismiss staff, and potentially re-engage them\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite, which has slammed the government for hiding behind an Acas report on fire and rehire that is yet to be made public, launched a campaign in May to end fire and rehire once and for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to fighting fire and rehire in individual workplaces \u00e2\u20ac\u201c most notably at Jacob Douwe Egbert\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coffee factory in Banbury, where workers are now taking strike action \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Unite is also campaigning for an outright ban of the practice which is illegal in many developed countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Highlighting Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign, which has drawn widespread support from the public, Unite assistant general secretary for politics and legal Howard Beckett said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt’s quite clear that the public is firmly on the side of working people when it comes to the horrific practice of fire and rehire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “There is no grey area here,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey see that this is an objectionable practice that should be banned. The government has to get on the same page as the voters on this \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and fast.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Heavy on spin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commenting on today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement of the new agency, Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shadow employment rights minister Andy McDonald lambasted the government for failing to tackle the biggest abuses facing workers, including fire and rehire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOn their watch, insecure employment in the gig economy has spiralled and fire and rehire has become commonplace, while the long-promised Employment Bill has been ditched,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWithout outlawing fire and rehire and strengthening employment rights, this announcement falls well short of providing all workers with the decent and secure employment they deserve.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, TUC general secretary Frances O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Grady highlighted how there was no commitment to a timeline for the new agency \u00e2\u20ac\u201c since it will be created through primary legislation and so is beholden to the parliamentary timetable \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and no additional funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bEveryone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect at work,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut years of underinvestment have left our enforcement system in crisis and millions of workers vulnerable to exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bToday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement is heavy on spin, but light on action,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Grady added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bRather than clamping down on bad bosses now, the government is today making an announcement with no plan to legislate to make it happen \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and no new funding either.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098No right to posture about protecting workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey also criticised the government for again failing to take action on fire and rehire. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Paul Scully is the very minister who denounced fire and rehire as a `bully boy’ practice,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bYet he has failed to take this opportunity to address this mass-scale assault on UK workers by major employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “This is just not good enough,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe’re fighting day and night to protect tens of thousands of workers right now from raids by their employers that could see them lose their jobs or thousands of pounds in wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “Unless and until this repugnant practice is outlawed, employers will continue to find it too easy to sack and mistreat this country’s workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “The government has no right to posture about protecting workers while it stands by as the wages and conditions of decent people are being ripped away,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 McCluskey continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “Instead, the scale of this government’s ambitions for working people are exposed by this sorry reheat of Mrs May’s discarded leftovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe bald reality is that labour laws in this country are just too weak, and the punishments meted out to abusers are too few or too insubstantial to offer any meaningful deterrence. Rogue employers could wait hundreds of years to encounter an enforcement officer, let alone a court of law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c2\u00a0“The truth is that working people are better off in a union that will fight to defend them, rather than hoping that this government will stand by them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Hajera Blagg<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite and other unions have warned that a new employment rights enforcement agency announced by the government falls far short of what is needed to truly protect workers from exploitation and abuse. Unite has said that without addressing the single biggest threat to workers today \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the plague of fire and rehire \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[468,1409,369],"wps_subtitle":"Unite: re-heated watchdog proposals fail to address biggest issue facing UK workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c fire and rehire","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29107"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29111,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29107\/revisions\/29111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}