Workers’ Rights

As your MP, I have consistently voted for rights and protections for British workers. This may sound common-sense, but not all parties agree: the Conservatives and Reform have consistently voted against. I want to explain what I believe, and why.

I believe working people are the backbone of our economy and the engine of our society.

It is work which generates economic growth. It is decent work, with security and fair pay, which gives you dignity and pride; that underpins dignity at home.

But too many people are not in decent work. Some six million UK workers are in low-paid, insecure work in the UK, impossible to raise a family on. Before I was elected to Parliament, I led a project looking at the links between poor-quality jobs and poor health in our region. Insecurity weakens our economy; boosting workers’ rights can improve living standards and strengthen our economy. If we believe in responsibility, then it cannot run only one way.

The Labour Party was formed in 1900 to give working people a voice and improve lives. Workers’ rights have always been hard fought for, and every Labour government has taken on fierce opposition to improve the fairness and security of work. An example is the National Minimum Wage: when Labour introduced it in 1999, some political parties said higher wages would mean lower employment. This did not happen. Instead, employment levels grew.

As your MP, I am determined to make work pay. This is why I voted for the Employment Rights Act – the biggest uplift in workers’ rights in a generation. The Act bans exploitative zero-hours contracts, introduces statutory sick pay from day one, ends abusive fire-and-rehire practices and strengthens family and workplace protections. Polling suggests that in our constituency, 72% of people support the improved right to sick pay. Around 15 million workers will benefit from these changes, which are designed to boost productivity, improve job security and support long-term economic growth by backing working people.

I voted to repeal major parts of the Trade Union Act 2016, which significantly restricted trade union activities. Joining a union gives you protection at work, and the right to organise in the workplace and bargain for better pay and conditions is fundamental to tackling insecurity and inequality. In our region, when we have had high numbers of unionised jobs, for example in the 1940s and 1960s, we had some of the best levels of employment in the UK. In the 1980s on Teesside, a sustained period of deregulation of workers’ rights coupled with the privatisation of our major industries led to almost a quarter of a million jobs being lost. They were gradually replaced by around 100,000 service sector jobs, particularly in call centres and leisure services – work that required patience and resilience, but offered little protection or progression. Workplaces had once been places where people met, organised, negotiated, and belonged, and our communities and our values grew around that. Nothing comparable took their place.

Today, the job ahead is to modernise the world of work so we can tackle insecurity and indignity for Teessiders. By ending insecure work, we can help to restore some of the frayed ties that are supposed to bind our communities together. By boosting workers’ rights so they are fit for the 21st century, we can strengthen our economy and make Britain work for working people again.