LABOUR WILL TAKE ACTION ON ZERO HOURS CONTRACTS

Labour’s Shadow BIS Secretary, Chuka Umunna, has criticised David Cameron for claiming he's fixed the economy, when the reality for families and individuals is that things are getting harder not easier.

Unemployment persists above 2.5million, with long term unemployment rising.  For those in work, out of touch ministers ignore the fact that the number of people working part-time because they cannot find a full-time job is at record levels.  And, for those in work, they are earning nearly £1,500 less a year on average than they were in 2010.

But, to cap it off, the reality of Cameron’s country is a more insecure Britain.  People feel less secure in their jobs and more pressured at work than at any time in the past 20 years according to the most recent UK Skills & Employment Survey. The ballooning of the use of zero-hours contracts under Cameron is emblematic of this.

Zero-hours contracts do not oblige employers to offer guaranteed hours of work to their workers.  Some like these arrangements but for many it leaves them subject to the whim and demands of their employer to work at short notice.  The CIPD estimates up to a million are on such contracts: this is insecurity writ large.

Ministers in the Tory-led Government are taking away the rights of people at work, making it easier to fire, not easier to hire.  By demanding that our labour market – which is already the third most liberal labour market in the OECD – be more “flexible”, the effect of their policies is to heap further insecurity on middle and lower income households who are already facing the biggest cost of living crisis in a generation.

Labour is clear: we aspire to full employment and decent, secure jobs which pay a wage people can live off.  Nothing less will do in the One Nation country we seek to build. That is why, unlike the Government - which has failed to carry out a proper consultation and call for evidence on the zero-hours contracts issue - we are acting.

Shadow Employment Relations Minister Ian Murray has been looking at this issue for several months as part of Labour’s policy review.  Today, we are bringing together over 20 different organisations representing employers, employees, legal experts and workers currently on zero hours contracts to consider what action should be taken.  We will then hold a debate in the Commons in the first week back after recess and will table a motion on the measures to be taken.

Why?  Because there should be no block on people pursing their dreams and aspirations. We are ambitious for Britain and for the British people - we won’t stand idly by whilst life for ordinary people becomes more insecure under this Government.