'Ham fisted' NIC rise will hit the low earning and insecure
Len McCluskey
| PoliticsHome
The post-Brexit period is a dangerous time for working people who look to Unite to give leadership, says Len McCluskey, who is seeking re-election as General Secretary of Unite.
Philip Hammond’s first and last Spring budget was his chance to show that he understood that working people have had it tough.
He failed.
In Conservative Britain, it is now acceptable for global big businesses like Facebook to pay less tax than a Deliveroo driver making £3 an hour, just as this government finds it acceptable for working households to struggle under mounting debt and falling wages.
The Chancellor should have stopped to understand what has compelled the numbers in self-employment to rise towards the five million mark before reaching for the tax lever.
But his ham-fisted increase in National Insurance contributions for these workers demonstrates again how little this government understands the realities of modern-day employment.
He would have known then that the vast majority of these workers are not titans of the boardroom or swaggering owners of portfolio careers but actually among the swelling army of the low waged and insecure.
Many self-employed people lack any employment rights, social security support, pensions or any kind of safety net.
All too often they don't even earn enough to start paying income tax - they certainly can't afford a hike in NI contributions.
Of course collective provision requires collective taxation but why target those who have no protections but leave alone those with an array of accountants?
Zero hours contracts, the growth of agency working and the so-called gig economy are steadily eroding workers’ rights and wages and increasing employment uncertainty. But none so much as the scourge of low-paid, and often bogus, self-employment, which is why Unite has established an expert team to ensure that those defrauding workers of their protections and pay are chased down.
A Tory Brexit will undoubtedly increase the rise in insecure working as the government uses it to weaken employment rights while bad employers make hay.
Theresa May’s Great Repeal Bill, originally presented as continuity without change, is now being referred to as a transfer employment rights into UK legislation “with modifications”.
Many on her side of the chamber see this as the opportunity to establish the UK as a low tax, no rights, Singapore of the mid Atlantic. They long to get rid of what they would term ‘red tape’ but to ordinary working people are actually basic rights, such as to not work perilous long hours.
These are very dangerous times for working people and they look to Unite to give leadership - united and leading from the front.
Yet one of my opponents in this election believes there is no point in arguing against a hard Brexit to protect our members’ rights and jobs, and thinks that leaving the single market is a price worth paying to reduce immigration.
He has told Unite’s members to face reality rather than even debate what is best for working people during these Brexit negotiations.
We have over a quarter of a million workers in manufacturing who are experiencing first-hand and in real time what happens when companies feel uncertain about future investment. They know very well what `reality’ looks like and want someone who will stand with them to save their jobs.
In recent weeks, I have met thousands of members in Britain and Ireland and across all sectors of our union. Everywhere I go I hear their concerns about the impact of Brexit on their industries and communities, the government’s failure to invest in their regions and the threat that automation presents to their jobs.
Yes, many of our members voted to leave the EU. But they didn’t vote to lose their jobs. They expect their union not to throw in the towel and hope for the best, but to do as I am doing – championing a new approach to the free movement of labour by stressing the importance of safeguards for workers and communities and the need for union-negotiated standards to protect jobs and stop greedy bosses misusing migrant labour to undercut wages; consistently lobbying the government for support for British industry; repeatedly calling on the Prime Minister to stop making the European Union exit strategy a competition between strong borders and the economy, and demanding assurances from industry bosses about their future investment plans.
The biggest challenge facing the UK economy for generations is Brexit and yet the government’s preparedness for dealing with it only received a passing mention in the Chancellor’s budget.
No sense that he or the government have grasped the enormity of the shock that Brexit will bring to core manufacturing industries. No basic initiatives to demonstrate that the government is serious about making its industrial strategy work.
Perhaps the Chancellor shares the view that there’s nothing to be done but to leave our post-Brexit economy entirely to chance.
While I am leader, that is not, and will never be, the Unite way.
PoliticsHome Newsletters
Get the inside track on what MPs and Peers are talking about. Sign up to The House's morning email for the latest insight and reaction from Parliamentarians, policy-makers and organisations.
