PARLIAMENTARY COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may/june 2012 :: RMTnews 9 When David Cameron and Nick Clegg launched the first peacetime coalition government in Britain since the 1930s they set out a shared agenda to establish a new politics, a new economy and a stronger society. On all these three objectives, they have comprehensively failed. Instead the Tory-led coalition has been compromised by the hacking scandal, BSkyB bid and been caught out offering dinners to donors. It has delivered the worst unemployment for 16 years and the first double-dip recession for 37 years. It has attacked core local services for the young, elderly and disabled with cuts that have been too far and too fast. However it is the coalition’s stance on workers’ rights and reforming employment protections under the guise of ‘tackling red tape’ that shows there is nothing new about the politics of this Tory-led government. The failure of George Osborne to maintain the economic growth and falling unemployment left to him by the last Labour government in 2010 has pushed the issue of greater flexibility in the labour market back to the top of the Tory agenda. Following its criticism of the coalition, condemning its failure to consider how austerity policies would affect women, disabled people and ethnic minorities, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has now been stripped of its duty to promote equal opportunities and has had its budget and workforce cut by half. Most recently, Theresa May has launched a determined attack on equality protections, including a review of the public sector equality duty and a significant curtailing of the power of employment tribunals to hold employers to account. Following decades of decline in employment protections and the powers of trade unions to protect their members, important measures were put in place during the final years of the last Labour government. These included long-fought for issues such as greater protections for temporary and agency workers. All these achievements now look likely to come under sustained attack as the pace of labour market reform hits breakneck speed. The most controversial element of reforms is the long-delayed report by venture- capitalist Adrian Beecroft. It seems that the troubled economic forecasts and the need for the Prime Minister to be seen to have a ‘pro-growth agenda’ has strengthened his resolve to push ahead with radical reforms on workers’ rights. This return to the hard- right agenda of the nasty-party shows just how out of touch and out of ideas this government really is. It may raise some tensions with a small section of the Liberal Democrats in Westminster but their record in standing up to their Tory partners is a poor one. The austerity agenda alone has already unfairly hit the poorest and most vulnerable in society hardest and this bonfire of employment protections for these same people should be seen for the vicious discriminatory attack that it is. Leaked reports of some of Beecroft’s recommendations include removing ‘third- party harassment’ protections for workers, removing any duty on employers to check the eligibility of their foreign workers and an end to the mandatory 90-day consultation period for redundancy programmes. Britain’s workers remain some of the least protected in the industrialised world. If Beecroft gets his way the relationship between employees and their employers will return to the era of industrialisation itself. If Cameron pushes ahead with such radical reforms there are many in the Labour Party who will have to accept that this is class warfare instigated by a Tory elite that must be challenged in the starkest of terms. Labour must commit to repealing any such changes and put before the electorate a coherent plan for reinstating employment protections for the future. Grahame Morris MP for Easington TORIES ATTACK WORKERS’ RIGHTS Parliamentary column