Introduction

Labour's New Deal for Working People and the commitment to implement significant changes to employment law show that Labour is committed to making workers’ rights work. At present, too often they do not. Many of the statutory protections that the labour movement has won over decades are being left to wither on the vine through a lack of effective enforcement. A right is not worth the paper it is written on if courts and tribunals are too expensive and inefficient to access in time.

To achieve a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, safety in the workplace and protection from discrimination, then the rights on the statute book must be made real and enforceable to all.

This chapter sets out how Labour can achieve this in relation to individual (rather than collective) employment law.

The proposed reforms would help British businesses who wish to obey the law. Currently, legitimate businesses face unfair competition from those who are willing to cut their costs by breaking the law, in the knowledge that being held to account is unlikely. Deliberate lawbreakers can offer services cheaper than legitimate enterprises, for example by falsely designating employees as self- employed and avoiding paying holiday pay.

Individuals who know that their actions, taken for gain, are in breach of the laws passed by Parliament currently face little or no personal jeopardy if the laws they break are statutory employment protections. That should change.

Workers who suffer accidents and diseases through their work are all too often not compensated, or under- compensated, and Conservative governments have put barriers in the way of them achieving just recompense. The law in this area should be simpler and fairer.

This chapter does not seek to set out exactly how every collective and individual employment injustice can be remedied. Significant changes will surely be made to reform trade union laws, allowing electronic balloting. Labour has announced a commitment to give workers statutory rights on day one.

Our recommendations, set out in this chapter, explain how Labour's New Deal for Working People, announced by the Rt Hon. Angela Rayner MP, can be implemented as legislation. The aim is a justice system where compliance with statutory employment protections is incentivised, and ignoring them becomes a risk not worth taking.