UK needs massive workers’ rights boost to match global norm

Cambridge University researchers have found that the UK is weaker in areas including protection from unfair dismissal, laws on excessive hours, employee representation and industrial action.

This is compared to the average for countries in the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), 38 states generally understood to be those with a high level of economic and social development globally.

The analysis – carried out for the Trades Union Congress (TUC) by Dr Irakli Barbakadze and Professor Simon Deakin at the Centre for Business Research at the University of Cambridge – demonstrates that labour laws in the UK are half as protective as those found in France and significantly weaker than other large European countries such as Spain, Italy and Germany.

UK workers’ relative position only got worse under the Conservatives with the gap in protection between the UK and other developed economies growing further since 2010.

Tory ministers restricted protection from unfair dismissal to those who had worked at their employer for more than two years, leaving millions vulnerable to the whims of their bosses. They also made it a lot harder for workers to take strike action to defend their pay and conditions.

The analysis in this report supports the TUC’s view that reform must be both swift and far-reaching to bring the UK’s worker protections up to scratch, delivering stronger growth with rewards that are fairly shared.

Strong worker protections are associated with high levels of employment and workers receiving a greater share of company profits.

The report also shows how hyperbolic the claims are that this will lead to the UK matching or exceeding the worker protections offered by our nearest European neighbours given the existing gulf between the UK and the international mainstream.

The UK is about to embark on the biggest shake up of employment rights for years under plans set out in the Labour Party’s Plan to Make Work Pay.

Employers are going to be stopped from parking workers on zero hours contracts for years. P&O-style firings where workers are dismissed then the same or alternative workers hired on inferior terms are to be stopped. Anti-union legislation is to be scrapped. These will be vital changes. 

Ignore any siren voices saying it is all too much. Such moves will only start to bring us closer to the international mainstream.

Read the report