argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): I will not The CAC could also refer the matter to ACAS if it thought that conciliation might assist in settling the dispute One of the more disturbing aspects of my visits to disputes around the country are the stories I have heard about the way managers have increasingly opted to issue notices to terminate the contract very early on in the process. The issue of a section 188 notice used to be a last resort. Recently, it has become a first-strike nuclear option. ACAS has also remarked on that Employers will set out their package of changes to terms and conditions alongside a section 188 and effectively fold their arms and say, "That’s all the consultation you’re going to get." They then begin to demand that workers come in for interview one by one, often without any union representative accompanying them. Workers are pressured into signing the new contract. Employers say, "How are you going to pay your mortgage if you don’t have a job? How are you going to put food on the table? How many children do you have? Two, three, is it? You really should sign because, you know, we have got 40 people lined up out here who would love to come and take your job. You are one of the lucky ones, you’ve got a job." This is how the threat of fire and rehire is used in practice. No wonder the Minister himself has called it bully-boy tactics in the workplace To fight back against this early issue of a notice of termination is actually very difficult. It takes a trade union between four and six weeks to comply with the law on notification, balloting of members, notification again and then strike action.
Health Incentives Scheme — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Education
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): Like my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), I cannot oppose what the Minister tells us here today, but it is frankly on a very small scale. The point made by the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), is fundamental. We need a recommitment to getting sports back in our schools for our children and young people. In particular, we have never been good at engaging girls and young women to stay in sporting activity, and that is now something of an emergency. Can the Minister give us more than her personal example and say what the Government will do to make that happen?
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for engaging so closely with the Bill. I think she knows she is over-egging it, because any tribunal would look at the situation in the round. The Bill is drafted as it is because it chimes with the legislation on redundancy. Again, to be technically proficient, the Bill has to merge with the other Acts.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Samuel Peter Tarry (Labour, Centre-left): I was one of the members of that Select Committee, and I remember there was very much cross-party agreement that it was such a disgrace for that to happen that the company should not carry the British flag. The point is that the parent company, IAG, had profits in the region of £3.5 billion-plus, there in stages, that it could have used. IAG’s agenda—and this is why I am concerned that what the hon. Member is suggesting may not go very far in discouraging companies—was about driving profits, not about saving the jobs and livelihoods of people, particularly women in their 50s and those towards the end of their careers. It was a restructuring brought in under the guise of fire and rehire.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): I agree that it really important to take the heat out of the situation at the very beginning. The hon. Lady is absolutely right—I mentioned it myself—about the importance of not having section 188 on the table immediately. That is why, starting at line 20, the Bill says: "The employer shall consult with a view to reaching an agreement to avoid decisions being taken to terminate contracts of employment, or to introduce changes in work organisation or in contractual relations." The precise point that the hon. Lady has made is there on the face of the Bill.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): If Members intervene before someone has really started their speech, it does lead to confusion, so they may want to wait a little longer on occasion. There is probably a lesson there for the hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North has made it absolutely clear that although he does not seek to ban fire and rehire, it should end. There is a difference, and I will come to that later First, let me thank my hon. Friend, who cited real examples of working people who are being impacted by this abhorrent practice. Sometimes in the Chamber, we move away from real examples and towards theses or even the law, which is important, but we must always keep in touch with the real impact on real people As I made clear in the Westminster Hall debate in April, fire and rehire is a deplorable tactic used by unscrupulous employers. Using the threat of permanent dismissal, employers bully their staff and force them to reapply for a job that they already had. They force them to sign away their pay, rights and conditions and rip up their original contracts. These bad bosses—these unscrupulous employers—do so knowing full well that staff cannot refuse without being cast out into an uncertain job market. Let me be clear: these are not negotiating tactics, they are nothing more than a form of legalised blackmail, with all the power in the hands of bad bosses. They are tactics that leave working people worse off to the tune of several thousand pounds a year while working longer hours on exhausting shift patterns. They leave working people with fewer days of annual leave, with no paid lunch breaks and with no protections when they fall ill. They leave working people without the dignity in work that they deserve, all while CEOs pay themselves inflated salaries and bumper bonuses worth millions of pounds So let there be no doubt. Fire and rehire is abhorrent, morally bankrupt and a stain on our economy. Put simply, these employers are employing bully-boy tactics—surprisingly, those are not my words but the words of the Minister.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker For those who seek to minimise the scale of fire and rehire, let us remember—the point was made earlier—that one in 10 workers, around 3 million people across the country, of whom a worrying proportion are young or from an ethnic minority background, face having their pay cut or their rights stripped away, or losing their job. What is most alarming is that fire and rehire is being used not by smaller companies but by big national names such as British Airways, British Gas, Tesco, Clarks, Argos and Weetabix, to name a few. All of them are established companies. Many saw bumper sales during lockdown. Workers at these companies, whether in the warehouse, in the factory, on the shop floor or in HGV cabs are also the workers who kept us moving during the pandemic Some companies threatening their staff with fire and rehire, such as Tesco and British Airways, even received Government handouts during the pandemic, only to take the money and then show their staff the door. That is scandalous. Rather than helping working people, the Government have subsidised their dismissal during the worst health and economic crisis in a generation. This is a national disgrace.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): I agree in part with the hon. Lady’s point. The issue here is this. She made her points earlier. I accept that there are good employers and there are those who perhaps are not behaving in the manner that they should. Referring to one of her previous points, the issue is this: those employers that are acting in a just, proper and proportionate manner are actually worse off because they are being undercut by unscrupulous employers that are not acting in the manner that they should. The size is perhaps for illustration purposes, but I do take some of her points Faced with such scandalous and disgraceful behaviour by employers, the Government should have stepped in as fire and rehire spread through our economy like wildfire, but they did not. Instead, it has only been the Labour movement, trade unions and staff coming together to organise in the workplace that stopped the use of fire and rehire at places such as British Airways, Go North West and Heathrow. It was not Ministers and it was not the Government Let me make this point clear. The campaigns and victories of our proud trade unions fighting against fire and rehire, fighting against bad bosses, and fighting for their members and working people right across the country—whether it be Unite, GMB, Unison, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, Community or others—shows that, despite this Government’s every effort to diminish and grind them down, there is still power in the union.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member’s point does not even have a passing acquaintance with fiction, never mind fact, and does not deserve a response Trade unions and working people have been deliberately hindered in their efforts to fight fire and rehire as the Government put barriers in their way and bog them down in red tape.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a very valuable point. The most pertinent point that he makes is that many countries in Europe are already ahead of us and have already acted in this area. Let me say this to him: the reason that Government Members are loud and make points that go towards accepting in part that there is this need is that they understand that, when they go back to their constituencies, there is a different argument that they have to face there. I urge them today to seriously consider this very sensible Bill. The Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, with the support of trade unions, working people and the Labour party, would rebalance employment protection so that it is no longer overwhelmingly weighted in favour of the employer, and put workers and trade unions back on an equal footing. It would place power back into the hands of the workers who create the wealth, rather than the chief executives and shareholders who hoard it The Bill would also reward those countless employers who are doing the right thing by their staff in ensuring that they are well paid, well protected and well looked after, but who are being undercut by unscrupulous competitors. Yet even as Ministers claim to oppose fire and rehire, they are clearly telling their MPs to vote against the Bill, as is evident today. The reality is that the Government have nothing to offer working people.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman says that he supports a councillor who stands up against fire and rehire in his constituency. I say to him that he should stand up in the House and support fire and rehire [Interruption.]—support ending fire and rehire. Then he can take that message back Of course, neither I nor anybody on these Benches intend to make this a partisan issue. [Interruption.] Let me finish. Our issue is that the Government have instructed Conservative Members to vote against the Bill. [Interruption.] Well, in that case, I look forward to welcoming Conservative Members in our Lobby today Let us look at the Government’s shameful record. I am not surprised that they are voting against stopping fire and rehire, because over the last decade, they have done nothing but openly attack and undermine workers’ rights. They introduced the Trade Union Act 2016 that stripped away the power of trade unions and made it harder for working people to organise in defence of their rights. They preside over an employment tribunal backlog that means it is almost impossible to receive justice for mistreatment in the workplace. They leave the post of director of labour market enforcement vacant at a time when we are seeing more workers exploited in the workplace. They promised us an employment Bill that we are still waiting for almost two years later. Is it any wonder that we have a labour shortage when the Government could not care less about the rights of working people We all know that the Prime Minister likes to talk about levelling up and building back better, but the Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot talk about levelling up without levelling up employment protections. They cannot talk about building back better without building a better employment rights settlement. They cannot talk about fire and rehire being a "bully boy tactic" without voting for this Bill today.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): I have been very generous with my time I urge the Minister to back giving rights to working people, back an end to the disgraceful use of fire and rehire, and back the Bill today. If this Government will not, then the next Labour Government, as part of our employment rights Green Paper, will.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member is making some excellent points. I do not think that anybody in the House is suggesting that the sort of practices that he engaged in, as a good and responsible employer, are the issues at play here. The issue that concerns us is employers that are making very significant profits using the cover of covid to deploy these dreadful tactics, not the sort of good practices that he is describing. He is making reasonable points about periods of consultation. If he finds that those are too onerous, we can address and debate those issues in Committee. We need to hear evidence directly from people, including his considerable experience.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman says that there is only one thing worse than fire and rehire, and that is just fire. But if this is about the option of an offer of redundancy with a redundancy payment, as opposed to someone having a gun over their head and being told, "Take these worse terms or you won’t be able to pay for your housing. You can have no job at all, with no redundancy pay-off", I am not sure he is right. And the situation may even be worse than that. He needs to remember the stress that our constituents were facing when they were faced with fire and rehire.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman professes to speak for business. My background is in business. I mentioned earlier that the productivity rate in Germany had been twice that of here because employers are required not to fire and rehire people easily, so they train people. Does he also know that the Government-commissioned research by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy shows that, in terms of productivity, the return to training in Britain is about 24% compared with only 6% in Germany? In other words, they have done much more training but our returns are much higher. Does he not agree that this sort of Bill, which puts pressure on employers to train and tool up their workers instead of just firing them when times are tough, is very important for the economy? Will he not join hands with us and take this forward to Committee?
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): There is much in what the hon. Gentleman has said that I agree with. I just point out that the Bill does not actually ask for the disclosure of "all information". It asks for the disclosure of "all information…without which the appropriate representatives would be to a material extent impeded in carrying on consultation with the employer, and… which it would be in accordance with good industrial relations practice that the employer should disclose" That is not a catch-all. It is specifically about the information necessary to conduct proper consultations about the future of the business. He is being very fair in the remarks that he has made, but he must not misrepresent the Bill in that way.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed. The hon. Gentleman is right, and the courts find it disagreeable that such a clause, purporting to allow retrospective variation of the contract, should be embedded within the contract. I would support the hon. Gentleman’s objection if indeed it were retrospective legislation, but the precise point is that any such clause purports to give a right to one party in the contract, and in effect to dispense with the entire contract and simply change it at will. That is what is so objectionable about it, that is what the court found objectionable, and that is what the Bill seeks to change.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): The problem is that the hon. Gentleman is conflating the extraordinary situation of the pandemic, when the Government, to their credit, intervened with furlough, loans and other measures, with a normal situation when a business needs to adjust to economic pressure. That is what we are talking about today—a Bill that, to a certain extent, limits fire and rehire so that it is not the first but the last resort. I feel that he should support it.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s good humour. The Bill does not ban fire and rehire, but we want—I think all hon. Members want—to end it as a tactic. That is the point. When people say, "Let’s end fire and rehire," they mean, "Let’s end it as a tactic, as a bad practice used by disreputable employers to do the wrong thing." I hope that that clarifies it.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), a fellow Bedfordshire elected representative, but it will not come as any surprise that we do not agree on all the points he has raised People have had their lives changed since 2020, with people going months without hugging loved ones, jobs lost and food bank use rocketing. So many people in Luton North have been worried about where their next pay slip is coming from—people who never thought of their job as insecure are now experiencing that their job and their wage is only as secure and reliable as their employer allows them to be. That is not inevitable, even during a pandemic We have seen big businesses—British Airways and British Gas, to name just two—trading under this country’s name but not in our country’s interest. They have used the pandemic as an excuse to get rid of thousands of workers and replace their old contracts with worse pay, worse terms and conditions and fewer rights at work for very similar roles. We have heard today that few of us disagree that the practice of fire and rehire is wrong, so why not vote to stop it I am so proud to stand with working people and our trade union movement, including GMB and Unite—I declare an interest as members of both, as well as of the Communication Workers Union—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, Unison, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association and many others. They are backing the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), whose campaigning fervour has got it to this point in just a few short weeks. We know from the TUC that one in 10 workers has been told to reapply for their job since the start of the pandemic. We know that black and minority ethnic workers, women workers, young workers and working-class people have been hit even harder by the pandemic. And we know that when restrictions were lifted in July this year, millions of people in constituencies across the country were less secure in their workplace than they were in March 2020 I am going to say something that I am probably only ever going to say once. I do not disagree with the Prime Minister—just once. I agree that we must build back better, but after 11 years of austerity and weakening of workers’ rights, better is anything but more of the same.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): I absolutely agree. We have heard today a collective understanding that the practice of fire and rehire, and its misuse, is an abomination for workers and is against our country’s values, so why not vote the Bill through today instead of talking it out After 11 long years of austerity and weakening of trade union and workers’ rights, we need to build back people’s working lives with better rights at work, stronger foundations and more security in jobs. No one can disagree with that.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that we have devastating levels of child poverty in this country, and that unless the Government take action on fire and rehire, they will just leave families in insecurity? The Government talk about levelling up, but they need to act on it.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. We hear terms such as "levelling up", but what we need is action, for exactly those people—those who are suffering from the horrific levels of child poverty and the insecurity of work. That is having a physical, mental and economic impact on constituents across the country. We need to see some action, and today would be a good time to start People in Luton North need jobs to be protected and created, and they need that now. We have been hit harder than most places, with our airport and proud manufacturing industry bearing the brunt of the pandemic. But these bad employers hurt the good ones, and therefore they hurt our economy and our constituents We had a statement earlier today—one that apparently could not wait—about improving the health of our nation. What better way could there be to improve our country’s health than giving people peace of mind, money in their pockets and security in their jobs?