Having a Labour Government is vital to Usdaw’s ability to deliver the best possible working lives for our members. Labour have pledged to make lots of changes that if elected, will improve the lives of not only Usdaw members but their families too.

For people in work, Labour’s New Deal for Working people is an ambitious plan that features many changes across working rights, pay, and protection in the workplace. This plan, which has been developed with trade unions including Usdaw, will deliver extensive and meaningful change for all working people in Britain.

Some changes may seem quite technical, and they’re not all headline grabbing, but together they add up to a suite of policy changes that will have a real impact on both workers and employers. Making work a fairer, safer and more respectful place to be.

Work and Pay - Labour's New Deal for Working People

• Make the minimum wage a real living wage - Labour will deliver a genuine living wage as a minimum wage and will ensure that every adult worker is entitled to it.
• Introduce day one workers' rights - Labour will establish basic individual rights for all workers from day one, ending the current arbitrary system that leaves workers waiting up to two years to access the basic rights of protection against unfair dismissal, parental leave and sick pay.
• Ban exploitative zero hours contracts - Labour will end ‘one-sided’ flexibility and ensure all jobs provide a baseline level of security and predictability.
• End the practice of 'fire and rehire' - Labour will reform the law to provide effective remedies against the practice and replace the inadequate statutory code brought in by the Government, with a strengthened code of practice.
• Secure working hours - Labour will ensure everyone has the right to have a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, based on a twelve-week reference period.
• Flexible working rights - Labour will make flexible working the default from day one for all workers where it is reasonably feasible. This will allow everybody the chance to create a better work-life balance.
• Strengthen protections against redundancy - Labour will also strengthen redundancy rights and protections, for example, by ensuring the right to redundancy consultation is determined by the number of people impacted across the business rather than in one workplace.
• Notice about shift changes - Labour will ensure all workers get reasonable notice of any change in their shifts or working time, with compensation for workers that is proportionate to the notice given for any shifts cancelled or curtailed.
• Closing the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps - Labour will require large firms develop, publish and implement action plans to close their gender pay gaps, and will ensure outsourced workers are included in their gender pay gap and pay ratio reporting. Employers with more than 250 staff will also be required to publish their ethnicity and disability pay gaps, to mirror gender pay gap reporting. This is a common-sense way to begin the process of tackling these glaring inequalities.
• Put mental health on par with physical health in our workplaces.
• Support unions to support workers - Labour will update trade union legislation, so it is fit for a modern economy, removing unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity and ensuring industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining.

Working people, Usdaw members, simply cannot afford to let the do-nothing Tories keep a hold on our country, driving down living standards and eroding workers’ rights. Working people in Britain deserve better, and that is what’s on offer if we get a Labour Government.

For more information about how you can get involved to make sure we get that Labour Government please visit our How to Get Involved page.

Promoted by Paddy Lillis, General Secretary on behalf of Usdaw, Head Office, Voyager Building, 2 Furness Quay, Salford Quays, Manchester, M50 3XZ.