TUC calls for greater clarity on employment rights

The TUC has renewed its calls for clarity over which EU employment rights legislation will be axed by 2023 after Liz Truss  pledged to consign ‘all EU red tape’ to history in her speech at the Conservative Party conference today.

The Government is currently reviewing EU regulations and, during the Conservative party leadership contest, Truss said that she would scrap EU regulations that hinder growth.

The TUC has declared its concerns that this could see the scrapping of regulations relating to a panoply of employment rights, including part-time workers’ rights, agency workers’ rights and working hours.

Frances O’Grady said: “Holiday pay, equal pay for women and men, safe limits on working time and parental leave are just a few of the rights underpinned by retained EU law. These are all essential – not a nice-to-have.

“The government must now come clean over its plans – and which rights will be axed by the end of 2023.

“If ministers want to deliver on their promise to enhance workers’ rights, they need to set the record straight and make it clear that not a single workplace right will disappear as a result of this bill.

“Workers need stronger legal protections and more power in the workplace to defend their living standards – not less.”

The Brexit Freedoms Bill, published earlier in the year, pledges to “make it easier to amend or remove outdated ‘retained EU law’ – legacy EU law kept on the statute book after Brexit as a bridging measure – and will accompany a major cross-government drive to reform, repeal and replace outdated EU law”.

In her conference speech, Truss avoided concrete policy plans, but said that she was committed to bringing down childcare costs. It was anticipated that her speech would see an announcement on relaxing the child to staff ratios in childcare seetings, which the Government has been consulting on and which it says could bring down costs.

However, the policy is controversial and the vast majority of childcare providers say it will do nothing to reduce the fees parents’ pay. However, they are concerned about the impact on childcare quality and safety. It is not the first time the Conservative party has proposed this measure and it has been dropped in the past due to opposition from parents’ groups, including Mumsnet. In 2013 the Lib Dems stepped in to kill it off after it was proposed by Liz Truss when she was the children’s minister.

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