Download a copy of the Institute Of Employment Rights Special Briefing on the Government’s Employment. A big step forward, but bigger steps are still required.
By Lord John Henry KC and Professor Keith Ewing
Category: Research & Briefing Papers
Announcement on Freeports was “a cock – up” says Downing Street
The Government’s announcement that Chancellor Rachel Reeves would announce five new Freeports in the budget was a “communications cock up” Downing Street now says.
On October 25th Starmer (in Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit with the King) and his aides announced the move as part of its effort to drive economic growth.
The Government said it would set out plans to establish more low tax zones plus an ‘investment zone’ in the East Midlands where businesses will benefit from tax breaks such as lower tariffs and customs creating thousands of new jobs and ‘turbo charging’ the economy.
Between 1984 and 2012 existing Freeport’s made little impact on the economy. Unions warned they would suck many companies in to the low tax, union free zones creating low paid precarious jobs and stable jobs would be lost at established businesses.
They were eventually phased out by David Cameron’s government only for Rishi Sunak to re-establish them as chancellor as a way of shoring up trade following the Brexit disaster.
From 2021, eight new Freeports opened in England with two each in Scotland and Wales with little success and minimal interest from business and industry.
Starmer’s announcement said Freeports “would have this government’s stamp on them” despite their failure. He said existing Freeports were “working well” but Labour would make them work better.
The announcement received a frosty reception from business and unions. Unions dusted off their briefings on Freeport’s and with the TUCs comprehensive analysis published in 2020 (region by region) handily still on their website copies soon found their way on to the phones of supportive trade union MPs.
A government official blamed the time difference: “the whole thing was snarled up by the fact that Starmer and his aides (who’d trailed the news) were 13 hours ahead in Samoa” and said it “comms cock up,”
Government officials now say Rachel Reeves will merely be giving the go-ahead to new customs posts at five of the existing Freeports. They say they are still baffled as to how Downing Street managed to make the announcement of customs posts into five entirely new Freeports – with the ringing endorsement of the PM.
It may be somebody pointed out that OBR said in 2021 “that tax breaks in England’s Freeports would cost the government £50m a year and that their impact on GDP was likely to be so small it would be “difficult to discern even in retrospect” – as well as union anger on the question of workers rights and union recognition despite the PMs spokesperson saying (almost as an after thought) that “where necessary the government will make improvements to the Freeport programme” and that the Employment Rights Bill would help safeguard workers’ rights.
Despite recent changes this latest “mis-communication” only creates an air of distrust and reinforces the view that Downing Street’s communications and media operation is a shambolic, and the gung-ho approach by officials and Labour staffers (using Johnsonian ‘boosterism’ language) trying to smuggle policies through thinking we won’t notice does not work.
EU Services Unions Report On The Extension Of Collective Bargaining
By Tony Burke
A new report from the European global union UniEuropa which represents 270 unions and 7 million members working in service industries including communications, digital and tech, graphical, media, finance and commerce has published a new report backing the extension and European wide collective bargaining.
It comes at an appropriate time as the European Minimum Wage Directive offers Europe’s unions an opportunity to rebuild trade union membership and power across Europe.
Under the directive all EU countries are obliged to protect and promote collective bargaining and, where collective bargaining coverage is below 80%, EU Member States are obliged to draw up and implement national action plans to increase collective bargaining coverage and the UniEuropa report is urging unions to grasp this opportunity of developing National Action Plans by proposing ideas and strategies to boost collective bargaining coverage.
These include the urgent need to strengthen trade union bargaining capacity by removing existing barriers to union organisation and protecting workers from anti-union practices; encouraging union organising and membership by limiting the cost of joining a union through tax exemptions or refunds; giving unions access to workers and developing workers facilities and resources for union representation; the introduction of union-only benefits, solidarity fees; systems of mandatory union membership, and the general need to re-regulate the European labour market to reduce precarious work.
The report also focuses on employers by challenging fragmented collective bargaining in multi- employer sectors; enabling policies to make some enterprise benefits including tax credits, training and access to subsidised employment conditional on collective bargaining and compulsory membership of employers’ organisations who are mandated to collectively bargain with unions.
In addition the report argues public policy should promote effective collective bargaining including ensuring the availability of accurate and complete data; proposing information requirements for employers; emphasising good-faith bargaining and fair bargaining practices; reform of industrial action and (the report specially says that “there can be no bargaining without the right to strike, and in some contexts reform of strike regulations is overdue”); regulations and financial support for collective bargaining and mediation; compulsory bargaining, mediation, arbitration systems and the setting of sectoral standards through government regulation.
The report also proposes collective agreements become effective regulatory instruments and have a legal status; a restriction on the use of opt-out clauses; using public procurement to incentivise sectoral bargaining and specialised labour courts; improving enforcement and education to shape cultural attitudes and promoting the benefits of collective bargaining and promoting a positive culture around good working conditions and collective bargaining.
The summary of the report says it does not claim to be exhaustive or definitive, nor does it reflect the position of UNI Europa or affiliates – some unions opposed a European Minimum Wage, for instance in Nordic countries preferring to maintain their own collective bargaining arrangements.
This report is ambitious – to say the least. There are ideas in the report that are in Labour’s New Deal including access to workers and anti strike legislation but others notably the extension of sectoral collective bargaining could be incorporated into Labour’s New Deal.
For those Labour ministers and MPs who will be guiding the New Deal through the House Of Commons it is well worth reading.
Download a copy of the report here
Tony Burke is Co-Chair Of The Campaign For Trade Union Freedom.