Labour rows back workers’ rights pledge in latest U-turn

Commitments on precarious and gig economy workers refined by party leadership

(EPA)

Labour has reportedly watered down its plans to strengthen rights for gig economy and precariously employed workers in a bid to woo business leaders.

The party’s national policy forum last month agreed a series of changes to the Labour programme as Keir Starmer‘s team firm up their policies ahead of an expected general election next year.

In 2021, Sir Keir’s party pledged to create a single status of “worker” in employment law to stop gig economy giants like Deliveroo and Uber from using bogus self-employment to undermine conditions.

But the Financial Times reports that the party’s policy documents now pledge only to consult on “a simpler framework” for differentiating the self-employed from workers.

This new policy would create a system that “could properly capture the breadth of employment relationships in the UK” and ensure workers can still “benefit from flexible working where they choose to do so”, the newspaper says.

Labour is also said to have refined a pledge to give workers full employment rights from “day one”, adding an explicit carve-out for probationary periods in which workers could still be sacked, according to people familiar with the text of the document.

The results of the National Policy Forum are not yet public and are due to be published ahead of the party’s conference in autumn.

Other changes won by the leadership at the policy conference reportedly include dropping commitments to clean air zones, following Sir Keir’s attempt to distance himself from the party’s flagship policy in London under Sadiq Khan.

Labour has been castigated for a series of U-turns under Sir Keir, who has abandoned large parts of the programme on which he won the leadership.

The opposition leader has ditched promises to take water and energy into public ownership, to support EU free movement, and to abolish tuition fees. More recently, the party was criticised for watering down promises to invest £28bn a year in green jobs,

Asked about the reports on workers’ rights, a Labour source said the party “has transformed its relationship with business”.

“Businesses are no longer running scared of us, but running towards us – whether that’s donating money or sitting down with us to write our plans for growth,” they added.

The source added that “last month’s national policy forum endorsed Keir Starmer’s programme, his five missions for government and the fiscal rules that he and Rachel Reeves have set out”.

Deputy leader Angela Rayner meanwhile said Labour’s policies would amount to “the biggest levelling-up of workers’ rights in decades”.

Posting on social media she highlighted pledges to ban zero-hours contracts and bringing in rules to end the practice of “fire and rehire”.