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Failing to doing so would be a mistake, warned Ewan McGaughey, a professor of labour law at King’s College London.
“The UK has among the worst employment rights in the western world, with standards that put us among the countries with the lowest wages, the most inequality and poverty, such as the US,” he told Big Issue.
“If the government steps back from even the timid measures in the Employment Rights Bill it will be a gift to Farage’s far right.”
What parts of the Employment Rights Bill could be watered down?
When Labour published the landmark legislation in 2024, it described it as “transformative”. Changes included a statutory right to flexible working and a ban of “unscrupulous” fire and rehire practices: the Big Issue dug into the details of the bill here.
Rayner described the legislation – which she led on – as “the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”.
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“Rayner had a big hand drawing up the new deal for working people,” said University of Glasgow’s professor Gregor Gall.
“We now know that the minister that’s going to oversee this is Peter Kyle, who is more a centrist than Angela Rayner. That is significant. It opens up a space for making changes to satisfy critics from business and from the right.”
The bill has faced stiff opposition from big business at every turn, who have lobbied vociferously for its dilution. Some of this lobbying has been, it appears, successful.
Tory and Liberal Democrat peers tabled several ‘pro-business’ amendments to the bill in the House of Lords. A Tory amendment reduced the qualifying period for unfair dismissal from a “day-one right” (as the government proposed) to a six-month minimum.
Another amendment is softened the requirement for employers to offer guaranteed hours contracts to make it so employees merely have the right to request guaranteed hours.
Such amendments may be rejected once the bill returns to the House of Commons. But it’s important, says Gall, to recognise that the bill has “already been watered down by the government itself”.
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Some instances of fire and rehire are now permitted, and there is a lack of clarity over what “day one rights” will actually mean.
“Already, there’s been a lot of what some people might describe as backsliding,” Gall said.
The bill also fails to create a “single status of worker”, a reform that would see Uber drivers and other self-employed gig economy workers gain rights like sick pay.
New TUC analysis that shows that one in eight workers – some four million people – are in insecure work, up from 3.2 million people in 2011.
People who are worried about their finances and jobs are far more likely to switch political parties, research out earlier this year showed – and more likely to vote for Reform.
“Many relatively poor people, people who feel excluded and so on, are attracted to Reform,” Gall said.
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“So I think it would be strategically inept for Labour to water things down any further. That will not stave off attraction to Reform.”
Reform MPs have voted against the Employment Rights Bill at every stage, but their anti-establishment appeal thrives on Labour’s failure to meaningfully improve the rights of workers.
“I would tell them [Starmer and Kyle] simply to get a move on with the bill and tie down any loopholes. Then Labour can at least say that it has delivered on this one part of its manifesto from last year,” Gall continued.
“If they don’t do that, Reform’s vote will grow. Because they make themselves out as speaking for the people. But if you peel away their mask, it’s about continued neoliberalism and deregulation that will further impoverish workers and the poor.”
Truly improving the lives of workers will require more radical reform, added McGaughey.
“If we want to fight the far-right, we need to make work pay through voice at work,” he said.
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“That sectoral collective bargaining, a single worker status, elected worker directors, and a new positive framework for equal pay.”
Under sectoral bargaining – a form of collective bargaining arrangements – representatives of workers and employers negotiate minimum standards for pay and terms and conditions for their sector.
The bill will establish a fair pay agreement (FPA) in adult social care, to “drive up pay and conditions”.
But FPAs for elsewhere have “gone out the window” for other industries, said Gall.
“The only thing that Labour has said on that is that once they’re in place, we will look at and see how things have gone as to whether we then apply the right to sectoral bargaining elsewhere.
“Well, Reform have been ahead in the polls for months. So I don’t know that Labour is going to be in office long enough to do that.”
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