“One clue will be with the appointment of his Cabinet. Will there be a seat at the Cabinet table for a revamped Secretary of State for Labour? Or will the job go a junior in the Department of Business & Trade where workers’ rights will play second fiddle to business interests.”
By Adrian Weir, Campaign for Trade Union Freedom
Nominations close for the new Leader of the Labour Party on 16 July; after our fringe meeting in Durham but slightly before our fringe in Tolpuddle. Although we may reasonably assume that there will be a single candidate to succeed Starmer, that person being Andy Burnham.
Andy Burnham’s thoughts on trade union rights remain something of a closed book. Burnham first became an MP in 2001 so missed Labour’s keynote labour rights legislation, the Employment Relations Act, 1999. As it would have been a whipped vote we may assume that Burnham would have voted for it, as he would have Labour’s most recent foray with the Employment Rights Act, 2025 had he been in Parliament.
Both of these Acts were and are very long on rights for individuals at work and very short on union rights.
As Mayor of Greater Manchester there is little sign that the regional TUC in the North West or its affiliated unions have expressed major concerns although the Morning Star in 2019 noted that Burnham was ultra-critical of construction workers who walked off the job over non-payment of wages when their employer went into administration.
On the Politics Home website Prospect union General Secretary Mike Clancy argues that Burnham must deliver on the Employment Rights Act and “not be nervous about it.” Although of course the Act has not delivered all that was promised in its earlier Green Paper iteration.
This is the crux of the labour rights issue, deliver on the diluted Employment Rights Act or return to Labour’s Green Paper New Deal for Working People and make serious changes to the world of work, essentially by reinstating trade union power in the workplace.
If Labour is to get back on side with the working class after the awful Labour Together years what is the better offer? Stick with the Employment Rights Act and if you’re wronged at work maybe get an Employment Tribunal hearing in a year’s time or implement New Deal for Working People in full and deliver on increasing workers’ pay and getting some dignity at work.
As John McDonnell MP has said: “This Government needs to indicate to working people that it’s on their side. What better way to indicate that than to deliver employment rights that defend people’s wages, jobs and basic security.” That is the essential question that will be discussed at our two fringe meetings this summer, at Durham and at Tolpuddle.
A Burnham led government could and should legislate in 4 key areas:
- repeal the anti-union laws of Thatcher and Major
- introduce statutory support for sector wide collective bargaining
- establish a right to strike, including solidarity action
- introduce a single status of worker.
The 2025 Act does, and it would be churlish to minimise this, repeal the Tories’ Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and much, but not all, of the Trade Union Act 2016. However, these two repeals do not get to the heart of the anti-union legislation brought in under Thatcher and Major between 1980 and 1993.
The legal web, with its precise timescales, notice to the employer, postal ballot of members, was designed and did indeed limit trade unions ability to organise industrial action to improve wages and to defend working conditions.
The share of GDP going to wages and salaries fell during this period hastened by these laws which had that as a desired outcome; they were part of the neo-liberal strategy to restore to the 1% that which had been taken from them in the post war social democratic settlement.
The Thatcherite legal web that limited unions’ ability to organise industrial action has been found wanting in a myriad of international legal tribunals and treaty monitoring bodies.
Most recently, the International Court of Justice on 21 May has handed down an Advisory Opinion that the right to strike is protected by ILO Convention 87 and that “great weight” must be attached to the pronouncements of the ILO’s Committee of Experts, which has repeatedly condemned Britain’s industrial relations law.
The ILO’s Committee of Experts in February this year condemned Britain’s prohibition on workers taking solidarity strike action citing particularly the P&O Ferries case where “maritime and dock workers who were unable to proceed with a sympathy strike … during the illegal dismissals of 800 workers.”
And so it goes on.
In what would have been a major breakthrough for single status of worker the Supreme Court held that the food delivery riders were excluded from using the trade union recognition procedure. The Social Rights Committee of the European Council in January criticised the Government for its failure “to guarantee trade union rights to platform workers.”
Platform workers have had their rights improved by the introduction this year of ILO Convention 193, the Decent Work in the Platform Economy Convention, However, in the UK this will need to be ratified by Parliament and like all other ILO Conventions enforced, something that has failed to happen for the past 40 years.
The Social Rights Committee was also unimpressed by the Employment Rights Act collective bargaining measures. Compliance with the European Council’s Charter requires the “promotion” of collective bargaining; the pale imitation of bargaining afforded to school support staff and to workers in adult social care were felt to be “insufficient” to meet compliance.
In all of these areas where Britain has been held wanting, implementation of New Deal for Working People would not only ensure an end to negative legal judgements but at the same time advance the interests of working people no end.
The so-called great human rights lawyer who has been shown the door felt able to ignore the negative findings of these international tribunals but maybe the incoming Prime Minister will have a more sympathetic take, we shall see.
Which way will Burnham jump? One clue will be with the appointment of his Cabinet. Will there be a seat at the Cabinet table for a revamped Secretary of State for Labour? Or will the job go a junior in the Department of Business & Trade where workers’ rights will play second fiddle to business interests.
As Burnham forms his new government team we must hope that MPs expressing such views as junior health minister Karin Smith are not included. During the recent resident doctors dispute she refused to rule out banning doctors taking strike action. She said banning doctors from striking is “not what we want to do” but it is “always a possibility.”
To explore all of these issues and more come along to the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom fringe meetings, produced in association with Strike Map, on the eve of the Durham Miners’ Gala and on Saturday afternoon at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival.
- The Campaign for Trade Union Freedom fringe meetings, produced in association with Strike Map, are on Friday 10 July at 6:00 pm at Methodist Church, 8 Old Elvet, Durham, DH1 3HL and on Saturday 18 July at 2:00 pm in the Fringe Marquee on the Tolpuddle Festival site (entry wristband essential)
- Adrian Weir is Assistant Secretary of the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom. You can follow the Campaign on Twitter/X and on Blue Sky.
- You can follow Strike Map on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X.
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