Latest editorial
A demonstrator protests against the government's sick pay allowance of just £94 per week for freelance and self employed workers during the coronavirus outbreak on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh
JOHN McDONNELL urged Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak to throw self-employed workers a lifeline today or at least clarify when state support will be offered during the coronavirus crisis.
The shadow chancellor said the majority of MPs have been contacted by self-employed workers such as freelancers, plumbers and hairdressers plunged into “desperate straits.”
He added that the crisis offered an opportunity to also crack down on agencies exploiting people in bogus self-employment and precarious work.
Employment lawyer ALICE BOWMAN warns ‘day one rights’ include an undefined ‘initial period’ and the zero-hours contract fixes create baffling fixed-term loopholes. If the Bill doesn’t work properly and deliver, Labour is doomed
Labour’s watered-down legislation won’t protect us from unfair dismissal or ban some zero-hours contracts until 2027 — leaving millions of young people vulnerable to the populist right’s appeal, warns TUC young workers chair FRASER MCGUIRE
The Bill addresses some exploitation but leaves trade unions heavily regulated, most workers without collective bargaining coverage, and fails to tackle the balance of power that enables constant mutation of bad practice, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
Incoming Usdaw general secretary JOANNE THOMAS talks to Ben Chacko about workers’ rights, Labour and how to arrest the decline of the high street