UK
An emasculated Employment Rights Bill gets over the line – Campaign for Trade Union Freedom
By Tony Burke
And so the Labour Government’s Employment Rights Bill is finally through the House of Lords, as Tory peers faced the threat of sitting through Friday and Saturday in the week before Christmas.
The Tory peers were under great pressure from the CBI and other employers’ bodies worried about losing concessions they had already gained, day 1 rights extended to six months, so they dropped their final Amendment to the Bill (in regard to compensation payments from Employment Tribunals) after trying to wreck it altogether – aided and abetted by Lib Dems peers.
The Employment Rights Bill is a long way short of what was promised in the Green Paper New Deal for Working People but nonetheless even in its diluted form it was a clear Labour manifesto commitment that the unelected Lords sought to water down even further to the point where Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said it was “‘shell of its former self.”
Of particular note is the fact that the Bill was opposed by 47 hereditary peers in one vote and 33 in another that defeated the Government by 24 votes.
As the Campaign’s Lord John Hendy KC has pointed out there is the so-called “Salisbury convention that Bills fulfilling the Government’s manifesto commitments must be allowed to pass.”
He also notes “the struggle over the Employment Rights Bill, and the House of Lords’ repeated attempts to block the Government’s elected programme of stronger employment protections, is more than a quarrel about constitutional etiquette. It is a test of whether our democracy still has the capacity to deliver for working people.”
The Labour Government had already succumbed to pressure from employers on key areas of the Bill such as on zero hours, fire and rehire, day one rights, union rights to have access to workers. They sacked key ministers driving the bill through parliament – for no apparent reason other than to appease the employers’ lobby – causing disbelief and anger across the labour movement.
Unions, lawyers and employment law specialists warned that the essential content of the Bill was a platform of (although welcome) employment rights for individual workers, that mainly have to be enforced by application to the Employment Tribunal, rather than collective rights for unions and union members.
The average wait for an Employment Tribunal hearing is around 335 days (approximately one year) from the claim being lodged, longer for more complex cases. Research has shown that in 2013 51% of successful applicants were never paid their compensation by employers; in 2025 75% of applicants using the Government’s Employment Tribunal Penalty and Naming Scheme have not received their awards. Little wonder that unrepresented applicants would in all likelihood just not bother.
Previous experience with the Blair Government shows a Labour government is highly susceptible to pressure from the employers’ lobby, for example, the recognition procedures that allowed for non-independent unions to usurp rights originally thought only would be enjoyed by bona fide independent unions, said to have been enacted at the behest of the Murdoch print and media empire.
However, on more than one occasion Blair was confronted with concerted opposition from the House of Lords. On such occasions Blair faced down the Lords which was ultimately more successful than appeasement.
So after a deal was apparently done to set the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal at 6 months we now have a still welcome (it would be churlish not to give it a welcome), but deficient, Employment Rights Bill soon to become law.
It may be that the movers and shakers in Congress House view the Starmer Government being one term only and will spend the next two years or so, before the next General Election, dealing with the innumerable consultations that will arise to give effect to the new rights through Regulations.
The Campaign for Trade Union Freedom however is calling for an Employment Rights #2 Bill to be introduced in this Parliament. The new Bill would be to implement the many areas of collective rights missing from the current version including statutory support for sectoral collective bargaining, the right to strike and to take solidarity action, a single status of workers and for proper and readily enforceable remedies.
The Campaign will be holding a major rally in March 2026 to campaign for an essential Employment Rights #2 Bill and to call for the Regulations related to the new law remaining consistent with the manifesto and for no further watering down during their drafting and consultation.
- Tony Burke is Co-chair of the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom and TULO Officer at North Bedfordshire CLP. Follow the Campaign on Twitter/X and BlueSky.
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