PM Starmer’s latest policy U-turn, of abandoning the protection against unfair dismissal from day-one for new employees in the Employment Rights Bill, created a furious backlash and revolt among Labour MPs amid the calls for his resignation.
The U-turn came the day after Chancellor Rachel Reeves broke another Labour election manifesto pledge not to raise taxes on income by freezing income tax, and National Insurance thresholds, and ensnaring millions of workers in higher tax brackets.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) stated that extending the freeze will draw a further 780,000 workers into the basic rate over the next five years, 920,000 into the higher rate bracket, and 4,000 into the additional, 45 per cent rate.
On Monday the government insisted it would overturn all attempts to scupper its Employment Rights plans, ‘including watering down day-one protection from unfair dismissal’. However by the evening, news broke that the policy would be abandoned, in direct breach of Labour’s 2024 manifesto.
Labour MP Andy McDonald branded the move a ‘complete betrayal’ and vowed to push for its reversal. We cannot support that halfway measure’, adding: ‘This is a wrong-headed move and I will campaign to have this concession reversed.’
Meanwhile, Labour MP Rachael Maskell said: ‘Employers have nothing to fear from day-one rights, but workers have everything to fear from an employer who doesn’t want day-one rights.’
But far from condemning Starmer’s abandonment of the protection against unfair dismissal in the bill, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), who sponsored the bill, have acquiesced to Starmer’s betrayal.
Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, supported Starmer’s U-turn and urged the House of Lords not to obstruct the rest of the amended legislation and allow it to pass.
‘The absolute priority now is to get these rights so that working people can start benefiting from them next April,’ he said.
Also in the new Employment Rights Bill, the legal status of mainly young gig-economy workers is also left unresolved as the bill only commits to ‘consultations’ over the issue, recognition of which would grant the right to sick and holiday pay, unavailable to ‘self-employed’ workers.
Instead, it only proposes to end zero-hours contracts by demanding guaranteed-hours employment, instead of ending the scourge of part-time gig working, ban it completely, and legislate for permanent employment contracts for all.
But Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said the bill was now a ‘shell of its former self’.
‘With fire and rehire and zero-hours contracts not being banned, the bill is already unrecognisable.’
However, on Tuesday, Starmer made an other U-turn by ditching the two-child benefit cap to avoid a leadership challenge from Labour MPs to oust him as PM.
Both Starmer and Chancellor Reeves have long rejected demands from the Left to end the cap, arguing that the move would be unaffordable.
Starmer’s actions, just weeks after taking office following the July 2024 general election, was to remove the party whip from and exclude seven Labour MPs for backing an SNP amendment to end the cap.
But by Thursday in Reeves’ budget all caps on child benefit were removed – again to avoid a massive rebellion by most of Labour’s backbench MPs.
With the TUC capitulating to the pro-business betrayals and the U-turns of Starmer’s Labour Party, it is time for workers to take action.
Trade unionists must demand a recall conference of the TUC to organise an immediate general strike to defend workers’ rights and living standards by bringing down this government and its rotten capitulation to the banks and big business at the expense of the working class.
If the TUC leaders refuse to call such a conference they must be sacked and replaced by new leaders who will lead this vital struggle.
We must then go forward to a socialist government to nationalise industry and banks and establish a centralised socialist economy to satisfy the needs of all workers.
It means bringing down capitalism with a socialist revolution. Join the Workers Revolutionary Party and Young Socialists to lead this struggle today!
