Priti Patel admits Leave campaign agenda to reduce workers’ rights – TUC

Last Updated: May 21, 2016By
Get your coat, Priti Patel, because you're the one who should be shown the door.

Get your coat, Priti Patel, because you’re the one who should be shown the door.

John McParland called this right on Twitter: “A gobby Tory Minister revealing that Brexit is all about reducing workers’ rights. It’s a REMAIN VOTE FROM ME.”

Commenting on a speech at the Institute of Directors by pro-Brexit MP Priti Patel, in which she argued that leaving the EU would be an opportunity to cut EU social and employment protections, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“Leave the EU and lose your rights at work – that’s the message that even Leave campaigners like Priti Patel are now giving.

“But which rights would go – your right to paid holidays, your right to parental leave, maybe protections for pregnant workers?

“The EU guarantees all these rights and more, and it’s why Brexit is such a big risk for working people.”

In her speech, Ms Patel said: “If we could just halve the burdens of the EU social and employment legislation we could deliver a £4.3 billion boost to our economy and 60,000 new jobs.”

The TUC does not accept her claim on jobs and the economic boost of reducing these EU-derived rules, but notes her overtly hostile agenda towards workers’ rights.

The TUC commissioned an independent legal opinion from Michael Ford QC on the consequences of Brexit for UK employment law and workers’ rights. A full copy can be found at www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Brexit%20Legal%20Opinion.pdf

Michael Ford QC’s legal opinion suggests that, based on past history and extant policy documents, the workers’ rights most vulnerable to repeal are:

  • Collective consultation, including the right for workers’ representatives to be consulted if major changes are planned that will change people’s jobs or result in redundancies (as have been used in recent major announcements in the steel industry).
  • Working time rules, including limits on working hours and rules on the amount of holiday pay a workers is entitled to.
  • EU-derived health and safety regulations.
  • Transfer of Undertakings (TUPE), i.e. the EU-derived protections to the terms and conditions of workers at an organisation or service that is transferred or outsourced to a new employer.
  • Protections for agency workers and other ‘atypical’ workers, such as part-time workers.
  • Current levels of compensation for discrimination of all kinds, including equal pay awards and age discrimination.

Source: Trades Union Congress – Priti Patel reveals Leave campaign agenda to reduce workers’ rights, says TUC

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15 Comments

  1. Justin Greenwood May 21, 2016 at 8:21 pm - Reply

    This horrible person should be investigated for abuse of standards in public office, it is quite clear that there is a agenda within the DWP department for targeting vunerable adults that needs to be investigated to see if there are any breaches of Safeguarding of Vunerable Adults Regulations and those responsible right from the WCA Assessor through to the decision makers and policy makers with government IE Caxton House should be held accountable for there actions, It is also not saving any money, it may after all the legal costs for tribunals and such have been recovered through there 30 pounds a week saving, however for the NHS, the policy that then puts a patient back into a over-stretched MH/D/A System at a minimum of 650 pounds a week and the long-term after care costs, then would the right horonorable patel please stand up and have a chat with Mr Hunt and discuss how there filling up hospital beds needlessly with such a reckless, much criticised, useless, staff with incorrect qualifications for the role policy, this policy should come with a mandatory review of all cases once a tribunal is upheld in favour of the person bringing the case and if there is errors in the process then due legal process should begin to stop them from practice and if necessary put them behind bars for negligence

  2. philipburdekin May 21, 2016 at 10:17 pm - Reply

    Just as I thought, I dare say the rights of everyone’s would go out the window and that’s why we must stay in

    • Theodore Kaligantsaros Ellinas May 25, 2016 at 4:15 pm - Reply

      what guarantee do you think you get from the E.U Seriously? Look at France struggling now to reform workers rights and the clash will be another 1970’s style meltdown. And what of this race to the bottom? Do you think the increase in labour will not lessen the need for labour and undermine workers rights – and of course the now; the zero hours contracts already here because of what ? Expensive , gobby workers from poland?
      Wise up its about stealing your nation not extending you rights.

      • Mike Sivier May 26, 2016 at 10:41 am - Reply

        Your racist comments about Poles are unwelcome here. Incidentally, looking at your own name, what’s your ethnic origin?
        Judging from the rest of your comment, I suppose it proves the adage that you never know what you’ve got until you lose it.

  3. Roy Beiley May 21, 2016 at 11:10 pm - Reply

    Taking us backwards in time. Why does everything have to be about “creating jobs” and “boosting the Economy”? More and more “jobs” do not require any human input due to new technology.How do “they” calculate the so called “boost”? Hogwash.What we need is a period of relative stability as human beings do not easily adapt to change.

    • Mike Sivier May 22, 2016 at 12:11 am - Reply

      “Boosting the economy”, as far as they’re concerned, is equivalent to “making Tories rich”.

  4. Jacob Butler May 22, 2016 at 6:41 am - Reply

    As a disincentive to employing cheap labour, employers should be obliged to pay immigrants MORE than the locals. Minimum wage (or the normal rate for the job) plus 10% perhaps?

  5. pint6x May 22, 2016 at 10:16 am - Reply

    Priti Vacant

  6. Gary Barker May 22, 2016 at 11:02 am - Reply

    With much regret I have to say the only way the UK can avoid suffering a Boris Johnson led Tory landslide in 2020 is by leaving the EU now. if we do not Johnson will be parachuted in as Tory leader and lead the party on a leave ticket up to the next election. This will mean they steal 3 million UKIP votes, win that landslide and then we’ll leave the EU anyway not long after that. What stark choices we have been led to by allowing privilege, money and vested interest call the shots for so long.

  7. mrmarcpc May 23, 2016 at 2:20 pm - Reply

    Another reason to vote Remain, what an awful woman she is!

  8. Bob May 24, 2016 at 11:41 am - Reply

    F*&K the EU and all you sheep who believe this drivel

    • Mike Sivier May 24, 2016 at 11:57 am - Reply

      I’m publishing this comment because it demonstrates quite clearly the attitude of the ‘Leave’ supporter.

  9. jimothy May 29, 2016 at 2:44 pm - Reply

    she`s the prettiest Tory since Mensch. I must confess a soft spot. And I align myself with her as a Brexiteer.

    • Mike Sivier May 29, 2016 at 3:26 pm - Reply

      She’s also firmly of the belief that the British worker is lazy – hypocritically so, considering her own Parliamentary attendance record.
      And she’s practically genocidal when it comes to her day job.
      But that’s all right with you because you think she’s easy on the eye.
      Then you say you support Brexit. Carry on, you’re doing the ‘Remain’ camp’s work.

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