"Unions warn against watering down Labour reforms of workers’ rights and ban on zero-hours contracts", Tuesday 20 February

Union leaders have warned business groups against pushing Keir Starmer to dilute plans for sweeping reforms of workers’ rights and for a ban on zero-hours contracts.

... the Trades Union Congress (TUC) said the plans were “extremely popular” with voters and good for the economy.

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It said ... the overwhelming majority of workers on [zero-hours] contracts are “stuck” in a position of insecure employment, which was leading to bad employers “parking workers on zero-hours contracts for years on end”.

It found a minority of zero-hours contract workers were on them as a stopgap, temporary measure, with as few as 7% having been with their current employer less than three months.

The TUC’s intervention comes after the president of the CBI lobby group, Rupert Soames, said this month that it was pushing Labour to soften its plans amid business concerns the measures could undermine economic growth.

Labour has pledged to ban zero-hours contracts, end fire-and-rehire practices and introduce “day-one” employment rights as part of a “new deal for working people” within the first 100 days of taking office.

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