Labour’s plan for 4-day week
Back to the 70s (cont.) as McDonnell vows no one will work more than 35 hours in public sector
JOHN McDonnell has suggested Labour’s election manifesto could include proposals for a four-day week.
Asked whether he wanted to see firms allowing staff to work one day less a week, the Shadow Chancellor said yesterday: ‘Watch this space.’
Labour also said that it would look to implement a 35-hour working week by 2030 – with no loss of salary – to allow staff a greater quality of life. Under EU rules, the maximum is 48 hours a week – although staff can opt out.
In a speech in Glasgow today, Mr McDonnell will say: ‘We are presented with the opportunity of a lifetime to change the direction of political travel in the UK in a way not seen since the 1980s. Our time is coming and it may be coming quicker than anyone expected.’
The plans were contained in a report commissioned by Mr McDonnell. The study, by economist Lord Skidelsky, recommended the idea for the public sector but ruled it out for the whole economy, pointing out that when a blanket 35hour week was introduced in France in 1998 employers simply froze wages.
It also caused problems in hospitals because it was impossible to take on more nurses to fill the gaps by shorter hours. However, at the launch of the report in central London yesterday, Mr McDonnell said he believed in a 35-hour week.
‘I don’t know when a general election is coming, as soon as possible as far as I’m concerned, but after we’ve got No Deal off the table,’ the Shadow Chancellor said. ‘ We’re rapidly writing the manifesto and the findings of this report will go into our policy-making process. I think a Labour government is coming and, as part of that, change is coming.’
When asked about proposing a four- day week, Mr McDonnell said: ‘Watch this space.’
The hint came days after Jeremy Corbyn announced reforms to boost union power by making it easier to go on strike.
The Labour leader told the Trades Union Congress that he would introduce 1970s-style collective bargaining and give state officials the power to enter workforces and prosecute bad bosses.
Lord Skidelsky’s report recommends the introduction of legislation to achieve a 35-hour working week in the public sector over the next ten years – a move to encourage private firms to follow suit.
The peer suggested the use of state procurement policies to establish pay, conditions and hours in the private sector and said financial incentives could be given to private firms to cut hours.
At the report’s launch, Mr McDonnell said he wanted to see the ‘rebalancing working hours with a greater quality of life for workers’.
He added: ‘Parents pass in the night between shifts and never have time together, just to ensure they can survive.’
Last night Paul Scully, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, said: ‘ This is highly embarrassing for John McDonnell. His own commissioned report makes clear his proposals could lead to wage freezes, problems at hospitals and hurt low- paid workers and small businesses.
‘ Despite these warnings, he intends to press ahead, showing Labour will always put their hard-Left ideology over what actually helps people. Labour always leave working people worse off.’