Workers’ unions in the UK got furious knowing that the government is planning to get rid of the promised laws concerning the rights of the workers. If the reports are right, then it would be the second successive year of abandoning the promise of introducing a law to improve job security by the ministers.
We all are aware of the P&O Ferries Zoom call scandal. It has been two weeks, in a call, without any notice, over 800 employees were sacked. And most of the time, the corporate reasoning behind sacking employees is to maintain the profit margin of a company.
Who are responsible: the companies or the legislators? It seems that both are responsible for making the life of a worker vulnerable, other the government would have made sure that no company can sack any of their employees without following the rules.
It has been two years since everyone is waiting for the employment Bill to make sure that the employer does not think of the staff as disposable items. Recent reports show that the government is trying to drop the bill of workers’ rights from the upcoming speech of the Queen.
If the reports are true, then it only means that the government is going against the suggestions of the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy who were pushing for the legalization of the workers’ rights.
Frances O’Grady, Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary, warns the government official by saying that if the bill is abandoned, then the corporates would get the green signal to go rogue. She also adds that since the P&O Ferries Zoom call scandal, the weaknesses in the UK employment law are exposed, and it is high time for a new law to protect workers’ rights.
Is there any room for delaying the legislation? I do not think so because the government has promised to improve the laws on workers’ rights. And if they do not keep the promise, it would only mean that the common people are defrauded and betrayed by the people who are their so-called protectors.
The government has to choose whether they want to stand on the side of the continuously exploited workers, or the side of the exploiters by abandoning the much-awaited employment bill. If we do not want the P&O Ferries Zoom call scandal to take place again then there is no other option than to introduce the new laws to protect the rights of the workers.
Exploitative approaches like sacking and rehiring will keep haunting us until there is proper regulation regarding the rights of the workers. Trade Unions want the concept of ‘fire and rehire’ to be outlawed.
Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB trade union, says that after all these sacking-related incidents if the government drops the bill, it would clarify the attitude of the government towards the working people that they do not care for the workers’ rights. The government is under extreme pressure after the news of abandoning the Employment Bill because some unionists are even claiming that the Tories would never do anything for the working class. And if there is any delay, that would only make the idea clearer that the government is not serious about the rights of the workers.
