THE labour and trade-union movement has called for action on sectoral collective bargaining in order to repay the nation’s debt to key workers. 

Speaking at a Labour fringe event on Monday night, CWU general secretary Dave Ward said the party needs to come off the fence and set out much more clearly an alternative plan after furlough and get behind the trade-union campaign to ensure key workers get higher pay. 

“Labour’s call on this as a complete re-evaluation on pay and reward should be for the needs of society rather than the market,” he said. 

He added that Labour must start a narrative on policies, saying: “I don’t want to be part of something that is tinkering at the edges. 

“We are going to build a new democratic economy and we should be saying that loud and clear.

“And to the trade-union movement: the biggest thing that we could do is realise that if we want to win for the working people, we need to mobilise the working people.”

Labour MP Claudia Webbe said: “It’s hard not to wonder how many of the front-line workers who died from exposure to coronavirus could have been saved if the recent governments had focused on building up protection for workers rather than transferring the wealth that they create to the super-rich.

“This crisis has demonstrated the need for unionised workplaces. The time has come to put people, planet and health before private profit.”

Shadow employment rights secretary Andy McDonald said: “Workers’ rights are a public-health issue. 

“Many workers have found themselves not protected at work as required by legislation, which demonstrates that the government response has been wholly inadequate.

“It’s not necessary for workers to pay the price for Covid through reduced work conditions when they’ve been fired and rehired: it’s a political choice to allow that to happen.”

Institute of Employment Rights chairman Lord John Hendy said he had hoped for a more radical response from the Labour leadership as the “British working class deserves no less.”

“Not in four years’ time,” he said. “We need it now on the verge of a new world.

“The situation of UK workers is not just dire because of Covid, it’s also the weakness of labour laws, it’s ineffective enforcement and pernicious anti-trade union laws.”