Workers need a party that represents us
Scott Hunter, Swindon Socialist Party
Labour has yet again delayed implementing one of the key measures of the Employment Rights Act: the ban on fire and rehire.
Fire and rehire – where employers dismiss sections of their workforce and then recruit for similar roles, but with worse pay and conditions – has become one of the most hated tactics used by the bosses in recent years. It hit the headlines in 2022 when P&O Ferries sacked 800 workers with little to no notice.
The experience of having to reapply for your own job and justify why you should be doing what you’ve been doing for years, all for a pay cut or longer hours, is not only stressful and humiliating but lays bare the inequality at the heart of capitalism. If employers don’t like the terms of the employment contracts they signed, they just change them. Not so for we workers. If CEOs had to periodically justify to the workforce why they deserve to stay in their job, how many would make the cut?
Labour promised before the 2024 election that its Employment Rights Bill, while never enough, would at least end some of the most exploitative employment practices such as fire and rehire and zero-hour contracts. Since then, the bill was subject to delays for ‘consultation’ with employers – in other words, watering down.
The Act, which became law in December, already allows fire and rehire in ‘exceptional circumstances’ such as local authorities under financial pressure – so, essentially all local authorities! It also has a baked-in grace period before the meagre protections are actually enforced, allowing bosses to go on a fire and rehire spree this year. The protections were originally meant to come into force in October 2026, now delayed until January 2027 – apparently the bosses needed to have the freedom to hand out redundancy notices for another Christmas!
Bosses want concessions
The delay may give employers the chance to wring more concessions from the government, including, as reported in the Financial Times, allowing employers to attack ‘non-core’ benefits “employees might rely on heavily to do their job, such as long-term accommodation for staff in care homes”.
How do we win real protections for workers? When the Tories introduced their Minimum Service Levels legislation in 2023 – which would have required trade unions to organise their own scabbing – they were met with a national demonstration from the TUC (Trades Union Congress). The law ended up being a dead letter when the first attempt to implement it was met by defiance and escalation by train drivers’ union Aslef. What really terrified the Tories was the threat of solidarity actions across the trade union movement and the conclusions workers would draw from it.
Unions can act
These are vital lessons for today: it is organised and collective action of the working class which can defeat the bosses. Last September, the TUC adopted a motion to organise a national Saturday demonstration against austerity. That motion needs to be actually implemented and the unions should demand the immediate abolition of all the anti-trade union laws.
Several trade union leaders have argued for a new workers’ rights bill. The trade unions should be instructing MPs in their parliamentary groups to coordinate to introduce such a bill into parliament and vote for it. And if MPs won’t work towards union policies, they don’t deserve our support!
Starmer’s Labour is weak and rotten to its core, and militant trade union action could win concessions far beyond what’s currently on offer. However, it’s ultimately clear that we can’t rely on any of the bosses’ parties – we need our own! Workers and trade unionists should stand in elections at every level as a step towards building a new mass workers’ party to really take on the bosses and end their exploitative capitalist system.
