Photographer: Hollie Adams / Bloomberg
Photographer: Hollie Adams / Bloomberg
UK government investigates workers’ rights reforms that would violate European Union rules, potentially opening up Britain until retaliatory measures from the bloc.
Officials have drawn up proposals that would drop the 48-hour limit on the length of the working week, according to a person familiar with the matter, who said the plans are preliminary and that ministers have not made any decisions yet. The measures were first reported by the Financial Times.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said on Twitter that the government is “not going to lower standards for workers’ rights”.
If the plans are pursued, they could potentially cause friction with the EU just weeks after the UK announced a trade agreement with the block. The negotiations lasted until just before Christmas, with the so-called level playing field of fair competition rules being one of the final points of contention.
The The agreement allows the UK and the EU to determine their own labor, environmental, climate and social policies, but also allows for retaliation if changes result in “material effects on trade or investment between the parties.”
Consideration is also being given to changes in the regulations regarding work breaks and a proposal not to include overtime in the calculation of some holiday allowance, according to the person. The government is pursuing changes that can support business and growth, without undermining worker protections, they said.
‘Enhanced’ permissions
“We have absolutely no intention of lowering workers’ rights standards,” the government said in a statement. “By leaving the EU, we can continue to set the standard and protect and strengthen the rights of UK workers.”
Any proposals that emerge will go through a full consultation to ensure that no policies pursued have unintended consequences that undermine workers’ rights, the person said.
Spokesman Ed Miliband, business spokesman for the opposition party, accused the ministers of “preparing to tear up their promises to the British people and take a sledgehammer on workers’ rights”, saying his party “will work tooth and nail. fighting “to defend existing protections.
Ripping rights open
“These proposals are not about cutting red tape for businesses, but about scrapping essential workers’ rights,” he said in a statement. “The government wants Britain to compete on the back of ordinary working people who lose their rights.”
While the UK left the EU with the same environmental and labor rules, the ability to free the country from the Brussels bureaucracy was hailed by Brexit supporters as one of the big prizes in the 2016 referendum campaign.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one of the figureheads of that campaign, held a conference last week phone call with the company heads asking them to help him decide what rules to break now that the divorce is over.