The labour movement must unite against attacks on our hard-won rights

Essential workers’ rights that we have all come to take for granted are under threat from the Conservative Party. That isn’t new. But coming over the horizon is a new attack that we need to be ready for.

In September, quietly and without much media attention, the government published the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill. The so-called ‘Brexit freedoms bill’. This important piece of legislation, crucial to ensuring an orderly exiting of the EU, ‘sunsets’ all EU-derived law by the end of 2023 unless government departments can make a compelling case to keep them.

Simply put, this means that every hard-won workers’ right enshrined in European law must be reconfirmed in its entirety into British law. In one fell swoop, this bill gives the government the ability to scrap, amongst other things, many key EU-derived employment laws including holiday pay, TUPE, parental leave, equal treatment for part-time workers and many other workers’ protection that Labour has worked so hard to win.

This is deeply concerning but has, with so much political turmoil at the moment, largely gone under the radar. It is time for us to pay attention. Instead of offering guarantees that these rights would be transferred into British law, the government has only offered assurances that it will reduce business regulation. That is why it is vital that we stand up for our rights because, as Frances O’Grady said, “these are all essential – not a nice-to-have”. These key workers’ rights were hard won for by our trade union movement and we cannot let them go without a fight.

There is more bad news. The bill, which has been estimated to impact 2,400 pieces of individual pieces of EU legislation, now falls under the leadership of Grant Shapps who throughout his career has made repeated attacks on our trade unions and has been accused of advocating for fire-and-rehire tactics. The new Prime Minister also has a history of advocating for scrapping vital laws and regulations. During the summer’s Conservative Party leadership election, Rishi Sunak made “scrapping all EU laws that hold the economy back” an election promise and in his first speech as Prime Minister he did not mention protecting workers’ rights once. We have reason to be alarmed.

The events of recent weeks have shown that even during a cost-of-living emergency – where 4.8 million people in our country are paid less than the real living wage – the government’s instincts are to penalise low-paid workers and to further change the system to support the rich. Sunak has shown with his new cabinet that his government will be just as right-wing and ideological as Liz Truss’.

If workers rights’ were to be undermined through this bill, it would be disastrous for working people up and down the country. We know that the impacts would not be felt equally, we know that it would be the most vulnerable as well as women, older and Black and ethnic minority workers who would be the most impacted. It is obvious that any attack to our workers’ rights would widen inequality whilst the country is facing a cost-of-living emergency.

Standing up for these rights is not just about work, it is about equality and justice too. Labour knows that the key to building a thriving economy is that it works for everyone. That is why Labour’s new deal for working people is so important as it lays out how, unlike the Tories, Labour would ensure better pay and strengthen workers’ rights – not take these rights away.

It is vital that the Labour Party and the wider movement does everything in our power to stop this government, acting with stealth and sleight of hand, from sunsetting the hard won rights of all the workers in this country. Now is the time to fight back.