A Labour government will make Britain work for working people

While the Tories attack working people and force them to pick up the bill for their cost-of-living crisis, the dividing line between us couldn’t be clearer. They are not on the side of working people in Britain, but Labour is.

In government, Labour will strengthen workers’ rights and make Britain work for working for people. Labour has a long and proud history of being the party not just of working people, but for working people. Everyone deserves a job they can live on and build a life on, no matter who they are or what job they do. Our ambition to ensure a fair day’s pay for a day’s work is core to our values. We all deserve high-quality, secure, rewarding jobs.

We have a vision, but we also have a plan. Our new deal for working people will be brought forward within the first 100 days of the next Labour government.

We will empower workers across sectors and occupations, along with the trade unions that represent them, to engage with their employers to agree to minimum standards on pay and conditions across industries. Labour will oversee the rollout of fair pay agreements to drive up pay and conditions for workers, starting in social care.

Boosting working people’s income is not just the right thing for them – it is the right thing for our economy. Better pay would end the self-defeating low-wage, low-investment and low-productivity cycle that the country has been trapped in for the last decade. It will also help to tackle the cost-of-living crisis by ensuring everyone is paid enough to live on. In place of the Tories’ fake living wage, Labour will guarantee a genuine living wage for all adult workers.

The fact is, right now, people don’t have money to spend in our shops, our businesses, our local economies – and high streets are suffering. It’s contributing to the Tory cost-of-living crisis. Places that were once a source of great pride are declining as independent businesses are replaced with bookies or covered in plywood shutters.

Under this government, the people that worked to build this country have been forgotten. In towns across the UK, people are working harder, paying more but getting less every year due to frozen wages, widespread inequality and increasing poverty. The people and places that once proudly powered Britain are being rewarded with low wages and insecure work. They are underpaid, under-appreciated and undervalued.

Labour will strengthen the protections afforded to all workers by banning zero-hours contracts, stopping fire and rehire, outlawing bogus self-employment and ending qualifying periods for basic rights, which leave working people waiting up to two years for basic protections. This will include unfair dismissal, sick pay and parental leave. A Labour government will secure your rights at work from day one.

Labour’s mission is to create more and better jobs that are closer to home so people have the real choices that they have been denied for far too long. Our country remains riven by inequalities which Labour is focused on fixing – to ensure that the working people who create our nation’s wealth get their fair share of it.

Whether it’s parents getting a late-night text to tell them their working hours and tearing their hair out organising last-minute childcare to cover their shift, social care workers taking on two jobs who can’t afford to take a break or get sick, or the bus driver who worked all through the pandemic but was fired and rehired on less money and longer hours – Britain under this Conservative government is not working for working people.

Rather than stacking the odds against working parents, Labour will deliver stronger family-friendly rights, including strengthening maternity and paternity rights.

Restrictions on union activity are also holding back living standards and the economy. We will update trade union legislation so it is fit for a modern economy and empower working people to collectively secure fair pay, terms and conditions. We will also stand firm against this government’s vindictive and reckless anti-worker and anti-trade union plans.

The Conservatives have had 12 long years to make the changes our country desperately needs to secure our future. We have seen the watering down of workers’ rights and rogue bosses like P&O take advantage of our lax rules while ministers stand idly by. Instead of fixing this, they now want to take away even more of our rights at work.

After years serving in Tory cabinets, nodding through the decisions that got us into this mess, the new Prime Minister simply doesn’t have the answers. We don’t need more of the same old failed Tory ideas that got us into this mess: we need the fresh start for Britain that only Labour offers.

The Conservatives have failed our country, but Labour’s approach offers people real help right now and a vision for the future of work where working people enjoy dignity, gain security, receive respect and get the support they need to prosper. We are ambitious for our country’s future. Together, we’ll build a Britain that works for working people.

READ LABOUR’S NEW DEAL FOR WORKING PEOPLE HERE