Scrap anti-union laws

– Turn the New Deal for Workers into law in the first year of a Labour government

– Full employment rights from day one

– Support workers on strike

Labour’s New Deal for Workers will restore rights at work for millions of people. I want to see that pledged turned into legislation in the first year of a Labour government.

I want union organisers given access to every workplace by law; a fair pay agreement negotiated in every sector of industry; full employment rights for every worker from day one of the job; an end to zero hours contracts, bogus self employment and “fire-and-rehire”.

But decades of experience as a trade union rep tell me this will not be easy. The UK’s entire business model has been built around insecure work, unequal pay, and stagnating real wages. As an NUJ activist in the late 1990s I saw Labour’s Employment Relations Act watered down by corporate pressure.

We need to scrap the Tory anti-union laws. And wherever Labour is holds power – from councils to city regions to the new national industrial strategy we’ve pledged – I want to see unions recognised as statutory social partners.

In the meantime, as health and education workers join posties, telecoms workers and railway workers on strike, I will always stand with them on the picket line.