European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Labor
John Eugene Joseph Dromey (Labour, Centre-left): The Government say, "Trust us, workers’ rights are safe." As someone who has fought for workers’ rights for 40 years, rising from being a lay member to ultimately being elected deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, I have seen often implacable hostility from Tory Governments towards workers and their trade unions in every decade since we joined the EU, ranging from when we were described in the 1980s as the "enemy within" to, more recently, the Trade Union Bill 2015 In the referendum campaign, what the wide-eyed Brexiteers now driving the Government would like to see in our country could not have been clearer. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) pledged to "whittle away" the regulation "burden" with its "intrusions into the daily life of citizens." Lord Lawson called for a "massive" regulatory cull. The ex-International Development Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), said: "If we could just halve…the EU social and employment legislation we could deliver a £4.3 billion boost to the economy." Indeed, the previous Prime Minister talked about killing off the safety culture. Anyone who had stood outside Wembley stadium with 1,000 workers mourning the death of somebody who had just been crushed at work would not talk about killing off the safety culture. And the Foreign Secretary said during the Brexit campaign that the weight of employment legislation is now "back-breaking" and that his preferred model is to scrap the social charter I do not doubt for one moment that there are truly honourable Members on the Conservative Benches who mean it when they say that workers’ rights will be safe; the question is how we safeguard that in the next stages Let me tell just one story showing why this matters—why European Union law mattered to British workers, and, crucially, why it matters that we get it right to protect workers’ rights as we leave the EU. In 1977 the EU legislated for the acquired rights directive, and our Government had to introduce it into domestic law. Eventually it was introduced, with gritted teeth, in 1983, with William van Straubenzee saying in the House that he did so "with the utmost reluctance." But the Tories then excluded the public sector; 10 million public servants were excluded for 10 years. The price that was paid, as we saw mass privatisation throughout the 1980s, was catastrophic for workers I remember the first example I dealt with, at the Fire Training College at Moreton-in-Marsh: 120 predominantly women housekeepers and catering workers had their pay cut by a third and the numbers employed cut by a half, holiday entitlement cut, and sickness entitlements cut. The only humorous side of an otherwise sad story was that the managing director of Grand Met Catering which won the contract was—I kid thee not—none other than a Mr Dick Turpin These situations went on for year after year. Let me give another example. My uncle Mick, God rest his soul, was a street-cleaner. He lived with me when I was a kid. He worked for Brent Council. I will never forget when Brent street-cleaners and refuse collectors were facing privatisation. During a meeting in their canteen one morning, the street-cleaners sat together, many of them disabled workers, in fear of what would happen because they knew that the bids coming in would result in a third of the workforce going, and they might be the most likely to go. I remember that my Uncle Mick’s good friend—a single man living alone—collapsed in tears afterwards at the thought of what loomed before him. There was 10 years of that throughout the 1980s I then took the case of the Eastbourne dustmen to the European Court of Justice and the European Commission, and we won. Thanks to EU law, our Government were forced to extend TUPE to cover 10 million public servants. It is vital in the next stages that there can never be any going back Time does not permit me to talk about other examples of implacable hostility: GCHQ, the refusal to sign the social charter, the national minimum wage, employment tribunal fees and the Trade Union Bill In conclusion, I stress again that I draw a distinction between the many Government Members who mean what they say and those who are in the driving seat, taking us ever closer to the cliff edge. When they say, "Trust us," say no. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) was right to table new clauses that would safeguard workers’ rights as best we can. We cannot delegate to future Conservative Governments—if they still exist—the ability to change workers’ rights by way of Henry VIII powers, so that they can say, "Off with their heads." On each and every occasion, as my hon. Friend argued, workers deserve the enhanced protection of any changes to their rights after we leave the European Union coming back to Parliament for debate, and changes being made only by an Act of Parliament. Is that ideal from my point of view? No, but it is at least a damn sight better than relying on Henry VIII powers in the hands of the Foreign Secretary—or who knows who?—at the next stage.