Mcdonnell vows to hand power back to the unions
TRADE unions will be handed back a swathe of workplace rights if Jeremy Corbyn wins the next general election, John Mcdonnell will pledge today.
The shadow chancellor will tell the TUC conference that a Labour government will oversee the biggest overhaul of workplace rights for 80 years.
Under the plans, all private companies employing more than 250 people would have to set up “ownership funds”, giving workers financial stakes in their companies.
This could see workers’ pay being topped up with dividends from their company’s profits.
Mr Mcdonnell’s speech – described as “substantially policy heavy” – is part of a bid by Labour to show that it is ready to fight a general election within months. He will tell union leaders that Labour will “restore the balance between employer and worker with a significant extension of trade union rights, modernising corporate governance structures and extending the opportunity for employees to share collectively in the benefits of ownership of their company”.
In his first speech from the platform at the TUC, Mr Mcdonnell, will say the Tories have stripped back employment rights to a level not seen since the Thirties. He will say: “Labour’s commonsense approach will forge a new workplace environment best suited to meeting the challenges of Britain’s ongoing low productivity and the emerging fourth industrial revolution.
“The massive growth in zero hours contracts and the gig economy have produced a workplace environment of insecurity not seen since the Thirties.
“The decline of collective bargaining has meant that work- ers also now have little say over the key decisions taken by their employers over the future of their companies.” He will add: “Labour’s programme of workplace reform will restore the balance between employer and worker with a significant extension of trade union rights, modernising corporate governance structures and extending the opportunity for employees to share collectively in the benefits of ownership of their company.”
But Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, attacked Labour’s record on job creation. He said: “This is Labour’s record on workers: the last Labour government left over half a million more people out of work and every Labour government left office with unemployment higher than when it started.
‘Labour’s programme of workplace reform will restore the balance between employer and worker’
“Under the Conservatives, there are over three million more people in work with the security of a regular pay packet, unemployment is at an all-time low and the lowest paid have seen the fastest rise in pay for 20 years thanks to our introduction of the National Living Wage.”
Left-wing unions have threatened a general strike unless Theresa May delivers Brexit in March next year. Sarah Woolley, of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, said the unions should tell the Prime Minister: “If you are not going to do the deal we want we will have a general strike and we will force the deal that we want.” She added: “We need to embrace that the UK is leaving the EU. A decision was made and we need to be proactive.”