Plans to make ‘a bonfire’ of employment protection policies need to
be extinguished, says Unite
11 May 2011
Coalition plans, unveiled today (Wednesday 11 May) to make ‘a
bonfire’ of policies designed to protect employees should be
extinguished, Unite, the largest union in the country, said.
Proposals centre on cutting compensation payments for
discrimination in the workplace; reducing the current requirement
by employers that consultations over collective redundancy are at
least 90 days; and diluting of the Transfer of Undertakings
Protection of Employment Regulations (TUPE) which protects the pay
and conditions of public sector workers transferred between
companies.
Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey said that instead of
mounting a further onslaught on working people, the government
should concentrate on creating jobs and boosting the manufacturing
sector which is in the doldrums.
He said: ”There is one community that certainly will not be
toasting the coalition's first anniversary - working people.
For them, May 2010 was certainly nothing to celebrate.
”The business department under Vince Cable’s supine direction is
cultivating a disgraceful reputation as a ‘do nothing’ department
when it comes to saving jobs, let alone creating the tens of
thousands needed, especially for those aged 16-to-24.
”If the 90-day consultation period is swept away, giving workers
and companies a small window in which they can save jobs, then this
shameful reputation will be cemented.
”And where exactly is the job creation dividend to be garnered
from dismantling TUPE? These regulations offer only slender
protection on pay as it is - they can do nothing to protect a
worker’s pension during takeover, but they can help to retain
much-needed standards in the workplace.
”This government is now in thrall to Thatcherism. Instead
of creating decent jobs and supporting investment, its idea of
growth is to make UK workers the cheapest and easiest to abuse and
dismiss in Western Europe.
”Chancellor George Osborne, and employment relations minister Ed
Davey, want to make a bonfire of alleged red tape – the labour
movement should be getting out the hose pipes to extinguish these
small-minded plans.
”If Nick Clegg’s new ‘muscular’ approach to the coalition means
anything, it should be about protecting employees from
mean-spirited, penny-pinching bosses.”
ENDS
Notes to news editors:
For further information please contact Unite communications
officer Shaun Noble on 07768 693940.
