Levelling up at work - fixing work to level up across the UK

We need to change the way our economy works and the incentives that shape it so that economic growth translates into good quality jobs. This requires an institutional environment that encourages the development of business models based on high-wage, high-skilled and secure jobs, rather than a reliance on low-paid and insecure work. Without reforms that hard wire decent work into business models, strategies to boost research and development and attract new investment, while welcome, will not deliver the good jobs people need.

This requires the development of a new skills strategy that gives people rights to training and development throughout their working lives. It also requires reforms to our corporate governance system so that companies are encouraged to focus on long-term, sustainable growth that distributes a fair share to workers, rather than prioritising short-term returns to shareholders. We need new measures to strengthen workforce voice and collective bargaining to give working people more power in the workplace. And we need to develop a new, green industrial policy with effective measures for creating and supporting good quality jobs in sectors that will equip the UK for the transition to net-zero and trade policies that will raise employment standards in the UK and around the world.

A skills strategy for all workers

The government has acknowledged the contribution of skills policies to the levelling up agenda. However, the policy framework set out in the skills white paper[1] earlier this year comprises a very modest set of proposals that will do little to tackle either the immediate problems created by the pandemic or the long-term weaknesses in our skills system. Looking beyond the immediate skills shortages created by Brexit and the pandemic, there are huge skills challenges on the horizon which require a new scale of ambition and new policy solutions that go beyond the white paper proposals.

The TUC is calling for a new national lifelong learning and skills strategy based on a vision of a high-skill economy, where workers can quickly gain both transferable and specialist skills to build their job prospects. Some key measures could be rolled out swiftly now, with longer-term reforms put in place to tackle entrenched failings in our skills system that limit employment prospects and personal development. A strategic approach along these lines could be delivered at pace by a National Skills Taskforce that would bring together employers, unions and other key stakeholders along with government.

Key challenges in our skills system

Not everything that is presented as a skills shortage can be solved through skills policy alone. As the current shortage of HGV drivers has shown, labour shortages can be created by poor wages and working conditions that make jobs unattractive and increasingly unviable for staff. A recent review by the Labour Research Department[2] shows how companies are increasingly forced to compete for transportation contracts on costs alone, driving down wages and conditions, and creating a situation where many drivers are forced to pay for their own training as well as essentials such as overnight parking facilities. LRD highlights examples of best practice in the logistics and other sectors, where employers and unions have agreed deals on pay, training and other matters to tackle growing labour and skills shortages. This demonstrates the importance of addressing working conditions through collective bargaining in solving skills and labour shortages.

We do, however face significant long-term challenges in our current skills system. A major concern is that participation in lifelong learning and training is in long-term decline, while economic and social trends are requiring workers to upskill and retrain more than ever before. As well as the immediate skills challenges created by the pandemic and Brexit, we face the longer-term challenges of automation, AI and the transition to a greener economy. The Green Jobs Taskforce[3] highlights that one in five jobs in the UK (approximately 6.3 million workers) will require skills for new green occupations and to upskill and retrain those in high-carbon jobs.

An associated trend is that those most in need of training are least likely to access it from their employer and this has been amplified further by the pandemic. A recent analysis by the Learning & Work Institute[4] found that employer investment in training fell more sharply during the pandemic than following the last global financial crisis. The groups facing the sharpest fall in training include adults with lower-level qualifications, young workers in the private sector and apprentices. This encompasses large numbers of the jobs in relatively low-paid work that have borne the brunt of job losses triggered by Covid-19.

Another area of concern is our poor record in supporting young people and adults to progress to intermediate and higher-level technical skills. There is broad support for developing quality post-school pathways to apprenticeships and technical qualifications with the same esteem as the HE route. But we are a long way from achieving this. While many of our apprenticeships are world-class, too many young people are not enjoying the quality employment and training experience that is the norm in apprenticeship systems in other countries. We also compare poorly when it comes to offering both school leavers and adults the opportunity to progress to higher-level technical qualifications that have an equal status to university degrees.

There are four key areas of reform that should be at the heart of a lifelong learning and skills strategy to address these challenges:

·       A significant boost to investment in learning and skills by both the state and employers is essential.

·       People should have access to fully-funded learning and skills entitlements and new workplace training rights throughout their lives, expanding opportunities for upskilling and retraining.

·       We need a national social partnership, bringing together employers, trade unions and government, to provide clear strategic direction on skills - as is the case in most other countries.

·       Our college workforce must be empowered and properly rewarded for their work; an immediate priority must be to tackle the long-term decline in pay in the sector.

More detail on each of these themes is set out below.

A boost to skills investment

State and employer investment in skills, particularly for adults, has been in long-term decline for many years. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), government funding for adults attending college courses was halved in the last decade and new spending on the National Skills Fund will reverse only one third of this reduction.[5] There are similar trends affecting post-16 education and training, with the IFS predicting that an extra £570m per annum will be required by 2022-23 just to maintain spending per student in real terms for 16-18-year-olds in colleges and sixth forms.[6]  TUC research[7] has highlighted that job-related training provided by employers has been in decline since the mid-1990s and this trend intensified during the pandemic. UK employers invest just half the EU average in training; if investment per employee equalled the EU average, there would be an additional £6.5 billion spent each year.[8]

A national lifelong learning and skills strategy should contain an explicit boost to FE and skills funding over a multi-year period and this long-term funding picture should be updated regularly.

A right to life-long skills and learning entitlements

With 80 per cent of the projected 2030 workforce already in the labour market, it is clear that we need to enable many more workers to access learning and training. However, the government’s current “lifetime skills guarantee” is significantly weaker than the adult skills entitlements that were abolished nearly ten years ago and is too restrictive to bring about the step change we need.

The guarantee applies only to a prescribed list of level 3 qualifications only. But many adults need access to free courses for foundation and level 2 qualifications in order to progress to take-up of the level 3 entitlement, which are not covered. In addition, many adults in need of retraining are excluded because they already hold a level 3 qualification, even if this is from decades earlier – making a mockery of the concept of a lifetime skills guarantee.

The TUC is calling for a package of measures to give a real boost to lifelong learning for adults. In the first instance, a wider range of skills entitlements for adults and a new “right to retrain” should be established. Over time these entitlements should be incorporated into lifelong learning accounts that would facilitate additional workplace learning, encouraging co-investment by employers. We should also follow the examples of other countries that have introduced rights for workers to paid time off for education and training and access to regular skills reviews in the workplace. OECD research[9] has shown that combining initiatives, such as lifelong learning accounts, with new workplace training rights has proved effective in countries adopting this approach. The government should also draw on the experience of other countries that have permanent short-time working programmes[10] and roll out a scheme that provides funded training to any workers who are working less than 90 per cent of their normal working hours.

Apprenticeships and young people

While investment in apprenticeships has been boosted by the levy, the number of opportunities has been declining in recent years, especially among the youngest apprentices and disadvantaged groups. According to a recent analysis[11] by the IFS, the number of 16- and 17-year-old apprentices fell by 30 per cent between 2019 and 2020 and only 3 per cent of this group took up an apprenticeship in 2020. IFS estimates this to be the lowest level “since at least the 1980s and almost certainly a lot longer” and that there is a real risk this could become a permanent trend. Analysis by the Social Mobility Commission has also shown a long-term decline in apprenticeship places for young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.[12] The TUC agrees with IFS that “there are few policy reforms or incentives in place to arrest” the decline in apprenticeships and to widen access.

The forthcoming review of the apprenticeship levy offers an opportunity to tackle these challenges. The TUC will be calling for changes to enable employers to use this funding in a much more flexible way. For example, there is a strong case for allowing employers to use levy funding for innovative pre-apprenticeship programmes and other initiatives aimed at boosting take-up, particularly of under-represented groups. But we will also be calling for wider policy reforms beyond the remit of the levy. There is a pressing need for government to enforce existing regulations and introduce new requirements of employers and training providers in order to tackle the continuing high incidence of poor-quality training, exploitative employment practices, low wages, and limited progression routes currently blighting our apprenticeship system.

Social partnership and union learning

Trade unions and their union learning reps have years of expertise and experience that should be drawn on to boost take-up of new skills entitlements in the workplace. The Green Jobs Taskforce has recognised this in its recent report[13], calling on more employers to recognise “union learning representatives, in order to increase access to training for hard-to-reach employees” needing upskilling and retraining. It is also notable that the latest annual skills analysis by the OECD[14] refers to the work of unionlearn and union learning representatives as an outstanding example of “proactive initiatives undertaken in OECD countries to engage low-skilled adults to participate in adult learning”.

As the OECD has highlighted, the UK lacks the institutional partnership of employers and unions that works so effectively in other countries to govern quality skills systems. This gap was emphasised by a recent report on levelling up skills after the pandemic [15] and by the Industrial Strategy Council in one of its last reports on skills, which noted that the role of employer and employee organisations in other countries is of great benefit to the stability and quality of their skills systems.[16] Despite these findings, there is not one mention of unions in the skills white paper.

This is a missed opportunity to harness the expertise of workforce representatives which, if not rectified, will hold back the development of an effective skills policy able to benefit both workers and the economy. We need a new national social partnership on skills to provide clear strategic direction, as is the case in most other countries. Trade unions will also continue to play a vital role by supporting young people and adults to upskill and retrain in the workplace

FE workforce

The skills white paper does include a section on supporting the development of the FE workforce but there is no acknowledgement that years of pay cuts and growing casualisation have demoralised college workers and undermined their status. On pay, the latest statistics show that there is a £9,000 pay gap between teachers in schools and colleges and the FE unions have highlighted that all college staff have suffered a real-terms pay cut of 30% since 2009[17]. The issue of FE pay has been highlighted as a priority by the two most important independent reviews of FE in recent years, the Augar Review and the Independent Commission on the College of the Future. The Commission recommended a new starting salary of £30,000 for teaching staff in colleges to tackle the pay gap with schools and called for a national social partnership between government, the Association for Colleges and trade unions to look at long-term strategic challenges facing the whole FE workforce, recommendations that the TUC and FE unions support.

The long-term decline in FE sector pay must be tackled as a matter of urgency, with an immediate and significant move towards restoring college pay levels to 2009 levels in real terms. Going forwards, we need to make sure our college workforce is properly valued, with contracted-out services brought back in house and no worker paid less than the Real Living Wage.

Corporate governance reform to promote long-term, sustainable growth

Our corporate governance system plays a key role in shaping the discussions and priorities of the boardroom and how companies are run. Company law and other soft law requirements, such as the Corporate Governance Codes, have a direct impact on the business models and employment practices adopted by companies. Corporate governance reform is an important part of creating a stronger, fairer economy where working people receive a fairer share of the wealth they create. Increasing investment is not enough; we need to change the way companies operate so that investment translates into good quality work.

Reform of shareholder primacy

The UK’s corporate governance system prioritises the interests of shareholders over the interests of all other stakeholders and arguably over the long-term interests of the company itself. A report by the TUC and High Pay Centre[18] found that between 2014 and 2018, returns to shareholders grew by 56%, nearly seven times more than the median wage for UK workers, which increased by just 8.8% (both nominal). If pay across the UK economy had kept pace with shareholder returns, the average worker would be over £9,500 better off.

The priority given to shareholder returns leads to companies paying dividends even when not justified by company performance. Our report found that in 27% of cases, returns to shareholders were higher than the company’s net profit, including 7% of cases where dividends and/or buybacks were paid despite the company making a loss. In 2015 and 2016, total returns to shareholders came to more than total net profits for the FTSE 100 as a whole.

Overall, profits varied significantly more than returns, with profits ranging more than twice as much as returns over the period. This contradicts the idea that shareholders are exposed to the greatest risk of all business stakeholders, as it suggests that they can expect consistent returns, regardless of profitability.

The priority given to shareholders in corporate governance is often justified by the argument that shareholders carry the greatest risk in relation to company performance. This argument is contradicted by the reality of share ownership patterns today. Institutional shareholders hold highly diversified portfolios with shareholdings in hundreds, if not thousands, of companies across different geographies precisely to spread their risk. Workers, on the other hand, invest their labour, skills and commitment in the company they work for, and cannot diversify this risk. Few workers can simply walk from one job into another and if their company fails for any reason workers and their families pay a heavy price – the loss of employment and income, skills, confidence and health that this can bring.

As well as squeezing wages, the priority given to shareholder returns hampers investment in R&D. Research for the Bank of England found that the most important reason for under-investment was a constraint on using profits for investment purposes, with three quarters of firms rating distribution to shareholders (including dividends and share buybacks) and purchase of financial assets (including mergers and acquisitions) ahead of investment as the most important use of internally generated funds. Strikingly, 80 per cent of publicly owned firms agreed that financial market pressures for short-term returns to shareholders had been an obstacle to investment[19]. This demonstrates how the role of shareholders in the UK’s corporate governance system contributes to under-investment and short-termism.

·       To address shareholder primacy, directors’ duties should be reformed so that directors are required to promote the long-term success of the company as their primary aim, taking account of the interests of stakeholders including the workforce, shareholders, local communities and suppliers and the impact of the company’s operations on human rights and on the environment.

Worker directors on company boards

In addition to removing shareholder primacy in company law, we need reform of board composition to change the culture and priorities of the boardroom and improve the quality of board decision-making.

There is strong evidence that more diverse boards make better decisions. The TUC supports measures to promote greater gender and ethnic diversity on boards.

It is vital that measures to promote diversity includes a focus on social diversity and diversity of role and experience. The TUC strongly supports measures to include workers directors on company boards. Worker directors would bring people with a very different range of backgrounds and skills into boardrooms, helping to challenge ‘groupthink’. It is clear from the minority of UK companies with worker directors and from evidence from countries where worker directors are common that bringing the perspective of an ordinary worker to bear on boardroom discussions is particularly valued by other board members.

Workers have an interest in the long-term success of their company and their participation would encourage boards to take a long-term approach to decision-making. They would bring direct experience to bear on the important area of workforce relationships, a key area for company success.

However, the arguments for worker directors go beyond the impact on board-decision making, important though that it. It is also a matter of justice: of all company stakeholders, the workforce is generally the most affected by the priorities and decisions of company boards. It is a matter of justice and democracy that they should have a voice in those decisions.

Worker directors are the norm across most of Europe. In 19 out of 27 EU Member States plus Norway (i.e. 19 out of 29 European countries) there is some provision for workers’ representation on company boards, and in 13 of these countries the rights are extensive in that they apply across much of the private sector.

Countries with strong workers’ participation rights perform better on a whole range of factors, including R&D expenditure and employment rates, while also achieving lower rates of poverty and inequality[20].

In the UK, the 2018 Corporate Governance Code now includes provisions on engagement with the workforce, with worker directors one of the options included. However, only four companies to date have chosen to comply with the Code by appointing worker directors (making a total of five, as the FTSE 250 company FirstGroup plc has had an employee director since the company’s inception in 1989).

A report[21] published by the Financial Reporting Council on how companies have implemented the new provisions on workforce voice found that where worker directors have been appointed they are valued and working well.

·       Worker directors elected by the workforce should comprise one third of the board at all companies with 250 or more staff. Our detailed proposals on how this should be implemented and more information on the case for worker directors, can be found in our report All Aboard - Making worker representation on company boards a reality[22].

Giving workers a voice at work – strengthening workplace and sectoral bargaining

Giving workers stronger rights to organise collectively in unions is key both to raising pay and working conditions and giving workers more say over their working lives. The absence of a collective approach to driving up employment standards has led to the poor pay and conditions that are now resulting in labour shortages across the country.

Research shows that workplaces with collective bargaining have higher pay, more training days, more equal opportunities practices, better holiday and sick pay provision, more family-friendly measures, less long-hours working and better health and safety. Staff are much less likely to express job-related anxiety in unionised workplaces than comparable non-unionised workplaces; the difference is particularly striking for women with caring responsibilities¹.

Employers benefit too. Collective bargaining is linked to lower staff turnover, higher innovation, reduced staff anxiety relating to the management of change and a greater likelihood of high-performance working practices².

And society benefits. Influential organisations from the IMF to the OECD have recognised the role of collective bargaining in reducing inequality, with the OECD calling on government to “put in place a legal framework that promotes social dialogue in large and small firms alike and allows labour relations to adapt to new emerging challenges”³.

But despite these clear benefits to workers, employers and society, collective bargaining coverage has declined over recent decades, falling from over 80 per cent in 1979 to 26 per cent today. This is in part a result of anti-union legislation but also of industrial changes, including the decline of the traditionally unionised manufacturing sector, the increasing proportion of people working in smaller workplace and the sharp rise in precarious employment models, which have created significant practical barriers for grassroots union organisation.

And in sectors that are characterised by low pay and poor conditions, we need to create new bodies for workers and employers to come together to negotiate across sectors and agree minimum standards for the sector. Sectoral bargaining is critical to driving up wages and conditions in sectors with poor employment practices that employ and will continue to employ large numbers of people. Fair Pay Agreements across sectors would protect workers from exploitation and prevent good employers from being undercut by employers with poor employment practices. Social care and hospitality, sectors characterised by poor pay and conditions and experiencing labour shortages, should be priority sectors for rolling out sectoral bargaining and Fair Pay Agreements.

·       Unions should have access to workplaces to tell workers about the benefits of union membership and collective bargaining (following the system in place in New Zealand).

·       We need new rights to make it easier for working people to negotiate collectively with their employer, including simplifying the process that workers must follow to have their union recognised by their employer for collective bargaining and enabling unions to scale up bargaining rights in large, multi-site organisations.

·       The scope of collective bargaining rights should be expanded to include all pay and conditions, including pay and pensions, working time and holidays, equality issues (including maternity and paternity rights), health and safety, grievance and disciplinary processes, training and development, work organisation, including the introduction of new technologies, and the nature and level of staffing.

·       The government should establish new bodies for unions and employers to negotiate across sectors to set minimum standards and Fair Pay Agreements, starting with hospitality and social care.

An industrial strategy for good, green jobs

The UK’s industrial and manufacturing base has experienced a hollowing-out since the 1980s. Between 1960 and 2015, UK manufacturing employment declined more sharply than any other advanced economy except Switzerland.[23]

The hollowing-out of manufacturing industries has had a disproportionate impact on deprived regions. Analysis by conservative think-tank Onward highlights that the decline of manufacturing jobs has particularly sharply affected deprived areas, including the Tees Valley, Lancashire and the Black Country.[24]

In some emerging sectors, the UK has struggled to claw back local economic benefit. Despite the soaring growth of installed offshore wind energy capacity in the UK over the past ten years, the number of jobs in offshore wind shrank by over one third (37%) between 2014 and 2019, according to ONS data. A similar 35% contraction affected job numbers in energy efficient product manufacturing.[25]

UK industries risk falling further behind if the pace of industrial retooling for Net Zero does not match that of international competitors. The need to update business models and technologies to support a decarbonised economy will create fierce international competition for investment, for example, in the automotive components manufacturing industry.[26] Ensuring adequate and timely support for industrial decarbonisation and retooling will secure the future of up to 600,000 jobs in manufacturing and supply chains, according to TUC research.[27]

Reviving industrial heartland economies has been a headline priority for the current government. However, there is still a lack of coherence and ambition in its approach to industrial policy, with the Industrial Strategy Council scrapped to wide-spread criticism.[28] A set of recently developed Sector Deals, negotiated with business leadership, aim to support the future competitiveness of industries, including nuclear energy, automotive manufacturing, and oil and gas extraction. However, some of the deals have been criticised for a lack of ambition on local content, and lack of engagement with workers’ representatives.[29]

A range of decarbonisation-related strategies (covering heat and buildings, hydrogen, industrial decarbonisation, financing net zero, and an overall Net Zero Strategy) have been released recently or are expected this autumn, as the government responds to the Climate Change Committee’s Sixth Carbon Budget and lays a claim to international leadership ahead of hosting the COP26 climate talks. However, in the Climate Change Committee’s 2021 assessment of the government’s policies, it noted that while targets for emissions reduction are now aligned with the Committee’s recommendations, existing policies are insufficient to reach these targets.[30]

The TUC was represented on the government’s independent Green Jobs Taskforce, which provided government, industry, and the skills sector with recommendations on maximising the benefits of the transition to Net Zero for jobs in the UK, including through public investment, industrial and skills policy. The Taskforce concluded with fifteen recommendations (some reflected in this report), including calling on government to provide policy certainty on Net Zero, integrate job quality and job creation into decision-making, convene a national body to oversee the workforce aspects of the climate transition and future-proof high-carbon sectors and their supply chains.[31]

Industrial strategy has an important role to play in levelling up, but supporting good quality employment must be a core part of the strategy. We need an ambitious programme that rebuilds the UK’s industrial capacity, tackles regional inequalities, and positions UK industries to be ready for, and benefit from, the transition to Net Zero.

Strengthen supply chain commitments for infrastructure and energy projects

To boost domestic manufacturing, services and technology development, and reap the full benefit of developments in infrastructure and renewable energy, the government should adopt strong trade and procurement policies to strengthen local supply chains and employment standards.

Strong local supply chain policies have been used successfully to build up oil and gas industry supply chains by countries ranging from Malaysia to Brazil[32] and in renewable energy by Taiwan[33] and France. The Scottish Government has recently published a plan to enforce local content commitments as part of licensing for offshore wind leases.

While mindful of restrictions on the use of local content requirements in WTO and EU trade treaties, the UK government should use such policies where they are legal and needed.

·       To bid for infrastructure contracts or energy subsidies auctions, companies should be required to demonstrate commitments to strong labour and human rights standards across their supply chain, and to lay out how they will strengthen local supply chains and what level of local content they expect to achieve. Companies should be held accountable for these commitments.

·       The UK Government’s Offshore Wind Sector Deal’s ambition for 60% lifetime UK content is clearly insufficient. An estimated 35% of windfarm expenditure is in operations, maintenance and service[34] (most likely to be local regardless of targets). The local content target for offshore wind should be brought up to at least 80%.

·       The UK should make use of geographical exceptions to state aid rules (e.g. successor to the EU Assisted Areas Map), and where appropriate, apply for sectoral treaty exceptions based on public interest, to strengthen local supply chain rules.

·       The UK should also use future international trade negotiations to expand governments’ ability to use conditions on investment to strengthen domestic supply chains.

Future-proofing industrial workplaces

Greater public investment is needed to decarbonise and retool UK industry and supply chains, protect local jobs and economies and maintain international competitiveness. This is especially important for high carbon sectors already affected by UK and international carbon regulations and increased international competition, for example, steel production. Without sufficient support, high-carbon employers may choose to relocate production to jurisdictions with a lower cost of carbon (a process known as carbon leakage), or conversely to countries that offer more support for developing and scaling-up zero-emissions technologies. Either process would risk losses to skilled jobs and productivity in the UK.

·       The government should invest at scale in future-proofing industrial workplaces.

Fund regional economic diversification, to meet climate targets and support levelling up

The relative success of past regional transition programmes in Europe demonstrate that a long-term commitment to public investment is key – for example, the 25-year regional funding for economic diversification in the coal centre[35].

The EU committed €17.5 billion towards its Just Transition Fund, financed through the EU budget and Recovery Instruments and to be further match-funded through the ERDF and ESF.[36] This will be invested in SMEs, land restoration, emission reduction and research & innovation, targeted at any regions at risk of being left behind through the decline of high-carbon industries[37].

·       Where local economies depend on high carbon local employment that cannot be retooled, the UK should provide funding equivalent to the EU’s ‘Just Transition Fund’ to support communities to diversify and develop alternative industries.

Using trade policy to create high global standards

To level up standards for workers in the UK, we need to level up standards globally - otherwise multinational companies will continue to situate themselves in countries where it is easier to exploit workers, creating pressure for lower working conditions around the world and deepening global inequalities.

Trade rules and trade agreements play a crucial role in this process.

In recent decades, WTO trade rules and a number of trade deals have overturned protections for workers and made it easier for multinational companies to relocate to countries where there are less rights for workers and it is easier to pay lower wages.

We need trade rules and deals that reverse this process by locking in and enforcing high standards of rights and protections across the world so trade produces good green jobs and sustainable development.

While domestic industries like manufacturing that rely on imports can be boosted by reducing tariffs, tariffs should still be used to protect sectors from unfair competition - such as the agriculture sector in Kenya that has faced trade dumping from the UK and EU or the steel sector in the UK that has faced unfair competition from dumping from China, which displaces workers from good jobs.

In some of the countries the UK is negotiating trade deals with, such as the US, the government enables trade unions to comment on the text of trade negotiations and provides a role for them in monitoring the impact of trade policy on workers. The UK government should follow a similar approach.

·       Trade deals and WTO rules should be used as a lever to lock in the highest standards by enforcing respect for international labour organisation (ILO) standards. Too often, rights have been defined disparagingly in trade deals as ‘non-tariff barriers’ that should be removed.

·       The government should not sign trade deals with countries that are abusing fundamental labour and human rights.

·       Trade deals must contain a mechanism for sanctions to be applied on countries and companies violating workers’ rights. Trade unions must be involved in this process to ensure action is taken when workers’ rights are abused.

·       Any freeports – zero tariff areas - that are established must not allow lower levels of workers’ rights in the freeport.

·       There must be a complete exemption for all public services in WTO rules and trade deals to ensure they don’t lock privatisation into public services that have already been part privatised.

·       Trade deals must also exclude the corporate court system (known as the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system) that allows multinational companies to sue governments for regulating public services that have been privatised in a way that threatens their profits.

·       In order to achieve the above goals, it is crucial that trade unions can comment on the text of trade negotiations and are involved in the development and monitoring of trade policy.