Facts and history matter when it comes to workers’ rights and Brexit

Workers’ rights are now central to arguments about whether the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal is a prelude to a deregulatory future and a bonfire of employment standards. Now that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) has been published but paused, we must test the Prime Minister’s assertions that the legislation will lock-in any future improvements in workers’ rights that the EU introduces and that commitment is future proofed.

This issue goes right to the heart of both what sort of economy and the balance at work we will have post-Brexit.

The rights that UK workers enjoy were not just given, but result from hard fought trade union and progressive campaigning for reform, both here and across Europe. Prospect is not affiliated to any political party, but that does not mean we are neutral on this issue. Our representatives and staff work every day helping, advising and supporting members. We know what it means to negotiate well when the odds are stacked against us. We also know what it means when workers are offered false promises.

After three years of what can look like political game-playing, there is understandable frustration among many. This frustration is being adopted for long term political advantage as ‘getting Brexit done’. But the danger is that this impatience gives some politicians a green light to sign up to a deal regardless of its impact and that on any reasonable reading, opens the door to lowering employment rights. Impatience could sadly give way to the slow realisation of ‘being conned’ but, by then, the die will be cast.

Those now backing the deal seem to rely on three main issues which play out across party lines: that the UK had strong workplace rights before we joined the EU so what’s to worry about? The argument goes that ‘we have some rights that are better than those the EU requires and that the EU is deficient anyway, because through its history it has given greater priority to the rights of capital as opposed to labour, and so we can do better if we are freed from this framework.’ The problem with this is that it seems to ignore both the facts and the history and relies on a premise that future UK governments will adopt as good if not better standards than the EU in future.

The political and workplace context has transformed between when the UK joined the EU and now, and that should be a stark warning to anyone who thinks that a free-standing Britain will necessarily deliver balance and fairness at work.

While the 1970s saw the introduction of legislation covering equal pay, anti- discrimination, health and safety at work and unfair dismissal, those rights arrived in a framework of extensive collective agreement coverage, national bargaining in many sectors and over 50% union density. The debate about the realities of 1970s industrial relations and its impact on the economy is still returned to regularly by commentators, often negatively, but it was undeniably a period where employment rights were extended and Unions had countervailing influence to balance the interests of capital.

The end of the post-war economic consensus under Margaret Thatcher fundamentally changed the world of work and the willingness of governments to regard trade unions as social partners. The 1980s saw unprecedented changes in employment rights and made them the political ‘football’ they remain today.

Resistance to the European Social Charter and Working Time Directive (WTD) symbolised this period. Because of the hostility of the UK government to the EU, both of these were only fully introduced in the UK after years of delay. And to this day the current government seem to regard the WTD as the epitome of all that is ‘wrong’ with workplace regulation derived from the EU.

But there are also EU critics on the Left. The idea that the EU is a ‘bosses club’ has been a persistent argument made by some progressive euro-sceptics. Today’s EU is far from perfect, but unions are social partners with some access and influence building on the foundations that remain in many EU states. Whilst this needs strengthening, workers’ representatives are part of the decision-making process.

This contrasts with long periods in the UK where trade unions have few formalised avenues for consultation or partnership. In the UK tripartite national machinery was dismantled, or deliberately under resourced, and so never reaching the extent of social partnership enjoyed in Germany or the Scandinavian countries. Most notably there has been the wholesale rolling back of collective agreement coverage and bargaining, which stands in stark contrast to the systems in many EU member states.

In practical terms the way that the EU works today has delivered very real rights and protections. For example on TUPE, working time and the eradication of discrimination, as well as providing a legal system which unions have often been able to use advantageously for their members to overturn worker-hostile UK laws. We tend to forget that EU rights are minima that any national government can build on. In reality many EU states have stronger national provisions than the EU directives, which is in total contrast to the UK, where since the 1980s EU law, in broad terms, has been both a bulwark for and a source of improvements to UK rights.

The idea that the single market only acts in the interests of business, also fails to recognise the significant benefits that workers can gain from EU membership. The EU needs reform, but the single market and free movement have been essential to British research, the spread of knowledge and close collaboration on major projects with our European neighbours. Our members consistently tell us of the value they get from close collaboration in their work across Europe and the very real benefits that non-UK EU nationals bring to their workplaces. At the same time around a million working people born in Britain live elsewhere in the EU.

Our view of the facts and the history of UK employment law since the 1970s informs how we approach the WAB. Since the referendum Prospect has consistently called for a legally binding guarantee that existing rights will be protected and that, in future, workers’ rights will keep pace with those in the EU. The WAB in its current form does not deliver that. Instead, protections have been watered down and the bill simply says that the government must consult over any future reforms, not that any changes must be binding. The governments other proposals on unfair dismissal only amount to a consultation on whether to reverse the negative changes made to these rights just a few years ago.

Much has happened since last week when I was able to put some of our concerns on workers’ rights directly to Michael Gove. His subsequent lack of answers to my questions was highlighted to the PM at the despatch box by the Leader of the Opposition last Saturday. On the hoof the PM seemed to promise legislation to protect existing rights and then ensure future alignment. But when the WAB was published these promises did not match up to the reality of the bill.

When I referenced my exchanges with Michael Gove my Twitter timeline was full of both supportive and negative comments. What struck me most though was the fact that we have so much to do to both remind people of where their rights have come from and where they may go post-Brexit.

Surely though, however you voted in the referendum, we can unite around a commitment that a post-Brexit world should not allow regressive employment laws, and we can do better than trading on a race to the bottom.

Prospect is having an impact on this the debate and perhaps more so because we are politically neutral. But we are not silent. We will continue to do all we can to represent our members, putting our points to politicians, whatever party they are from, without fear or favour. And most of all sticking to the substance, because in this debate, facts matter.

Mike Clancy is the General Secretary of Prospect Union.