Labour’s Employment Rights Bill promises workers flexible working, is supposed to protect them from unfair dismissal from day one of their new job, and make it easier for them to go on strike. In particular, according to Louise Haigh this week, it will stop companies doing what ferry operator P&O did two years ago and fire UK staff so that it could hire overseas agency staff at a lower rate of pay.
‘In less than 100 days of this government,’ Haigh told ITV this week, ‘we have brought forward legislation that will mean P&O Ferries and the scandal that it brought to Britain will never happen again.’
There is a price to pay for tighter employment laws – and in particular for attacking companies which are creating jobs
The Employment Rights Bill contains a measure which seems to be specifically aimed at P&O: it demands that workers employed on boats which call at UK ports more than 120 times a year are employed on terms which conform to UK employment law.
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