Workers’ Bill of Rights for an Age of Crisis

The Institute of Employment Rights demonstrated how sectoral collective bargaining could be achieved legislatively in its Rolling Out the Manifesto, 2018. The principles were adopted by the Labour Party in the 2017 and 2019 Election Manifestos and are found in A New Deal for Working People adopted by the Labour Party Conference in 2021 and reiterated in the 2022 Conference and the speeches of the Labour Leader and Deputy Leader.  This should be at the heart of a new Workers’ Bill of Rights for an Age of Crisis. Indeed, Rolling out the Manifesto was a blueprint for the complete transformation of the whole of our labour law. The main elements should be reflected in the new Workers’ Bill of Rights.

Programmes for reform must of course adapt as circumstances change and new priorities are exposed by government and employer behaviour.   They must take account of developments elsewhere.  In this respect there is much to be learned from the new EU Adequate Wages Directive, whatever we may feel privately about the EU or Brexit. We should not be so content with the virtues of Brexit that we cannot see the significance of a legal obligation on the State to work towards collective bargaining density of 80% of the workforce, or of the importance of encouraging this to be done by sector wide procedures. Equally, we should not exaggerate the transformative potential of a single initiative.

Nevertheless, the restoration of sector-wide multi-employer collective bargaining is the single most important step that could be taken to improve pay and working conditions.  But more is needed. So, for example, sectoral bargaining will be effective only if workers are entitled to strike on a multi-employer basis to support a sector wide agreement. The latter would have to apply to everyone in the sector, whether or not their particular employer was a party to the agreement. Likewise, such an initiative will not fulfil its potential unless it is running with the grain of economic policy.   It is thus necessary to win the battle for economic policy to win the political battle for workers’ rights.

In presenting below a Workers’ Bill of Rights for an Age of Crisis, we do so in the knowledge that there are already many such Bills or Charters.  These include the ILO Declaration of Philadelphia, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the European Social Charter to all of which the United Kingdom is a party.  There are also many such Bills, Conventions, and Charters to which the United Kingdom is not a party, including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as well as the national constitutions of many countries throughout the world (including Italy where the constitution opens with the immortal if implausible line that ‘Italy is a republic founded on labour’).

Rather than reheat the timeless provisions of these different texts, which were written in more optimistic times in our history, we borrow from them and adapt them to the current crisis of workers’ rights in the United Kingdom, to take into account the situation faced by British workers.  These include rampant income inequality; falling pay; precarious exploitative working practices; job insecurity as revealed by the pernicious practice of fire and rehire or the even more pernicious practice of fire and replace; the uncertainty of workers’ EU derived rights after Brexit; the continuing legal attacks on trade unions; and the low levels of collective bargaining coverage.

With all this and other considerations in mind, we propose a Workers’ Bill of Rights for an Age of Crisis as follows:

I

Every worker (however classified and except for the genuinely self-employed in business on their own account) shall be entitled to all employment rights from day one of their engagement.   Labour law shall be universal in its application.

II

Every worker shall have the right to full transparency about the terms and conditions of employment, which shall clearly define the worker’s obligations in relation to when, where and what work is to be done.

Every worker shall be entitled to a just wage having regard to (i) the social value of the work undertaken, (ii) the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, and (iii) the principle of fair differentials where work is of different value.

Every worker shall be entitled to the regulation of working time which guarantees (i) a sufficient number of working hours to earn a just wage, (ii) a maximum number of working hours weekly or monthly; and (iii) reasonable paid rest breaks, meal breaks, breaks between shifts, weekly breaks, and holidays.

Every worker shall be entitled to a safe and healthy working environment, free from harassment, protective of and accommodating their particular needs and vulnerabilities, upholding their dignity, and governed by rules in the making of which workers’ representatives participate, and which are effectively enforced by a tripartite, fully committed, properly funded and staffed inspection and enforcement agency with full powers.

III

Every worker shall have the right to join an independent trade union – whether national or international – for the protection and promotion of their economic, social and political interests.

Every worker shall have the right to be represented by an independent trade union on all matters arising at work, at every level including that of their workplace, their employer, their trade, and their industry.

Every worker shall have the right to be protected by collective bargaining, and to this end it shall be the responsibility of the State to take steps to ensure that collective bargaining machinery operates at enterprise and sectoral level.

Every worker shall have the right to participate in trade union activities and not to be penalised for doing so, and every union shall have the right to reasonable access to its members and prospective members at the premises of the employer.

Every worker shall have the right to participate in industrial action for the protection and promotion of their economic, social and political interests and not to be penalised for doing so, and every union shall have the right to organise and support industrial action, subject only to the rules of the trade union in question.

IV

Every worker shall have the right to equality of opportunity and freedom from discrimination, and shall have the right to insist on barriers to employment being removed, including access to free or affordable high-quality child-care.

Every worker shall have the right – either directly or indirectly through their trade union – to be informed and consulted about changes to contractual or working practices and to agree before any such changes are implemented.

Every worker shall have the right to job security, and the right not to be dismissed for (i) refusing to agree to a change in the terms and conditions of their employment, or (ii) before dismissal or other procedures are fully complied with.  Any such dismissal shall be void.

Every worker shall have the right to (i) social security benefits in unemployment, ill-health, or incapacity and to (ii) pension in retirement, which will guarantee a just income and a decent standard of living, without the need for charitable supplements.

V

Every worker shall have the right to insist that EU employment rights in force at the time of Brexit shall continue to apply in the United Kingdom, until such time as legislation makes provision for higher levels of protection.

Every worker shall have the right to effective labour standards.  To this end, it is the responsibility of the State to ensure that rights at work are enforced in practice by a tripartite, fully committed, properly funded and staffed labour inspection and enforcement agency with full powers.

Every worker shall have the right of access to justice in tripartite independent, impartial and speedy labour courts with effective and uncapped remedies to restrain employers from, and to compensate workers for, unlawful acts by employers, and to which trade unions may, on the instruction of a relevant member(s), be parties.

Every worker shall have the right to representation in government.  To this end, a Ministry of Labour shall be established to ensure that trade union freedom, collective bargaining structures, workers’ rights, and enforcement mechanisms are fully and effectively created and maintained.

VI

Every business selling goods or services in the United Kingdom and its territorial waters shall ensure that the workers in its supply chains are, in practice, accorded equivalent rights to those in this Bill of Rights.