The author of this piece published in the Morning Star is Adrian Weir, H&WG CLP’s Labour Unions Officer. He is also assistant secretary of the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom.

To nobody’s great surprise the coronavirus crisis has exposed the dreadful weaknesses in labour law in our country and clearly shown the need for a new framework of labour rights in Britain.

We need radical reform in health and safety rights, individual rights at work and of course rights for trade unions at least compliant with International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions 87 and 96, that Britain has signed, that guarantee a right to join a union, a right to organise, a right to collective bargaining and by implication a right to strike.

The ILO is an agency of the United Nations, its Conventions have the standing of international treaties but as the UK government has recently shown its respect for international treaties has been shown to be lacking. Of the expected breach of the EU Withdrawal Agreement government minister Brandon Lewis said, “This does break international law … in a very specific and limited way.”

Of course we have had 40 years of Tory and New Labour governments breaching international labour law in specific and not very limited ways!

Back to the pandemic. When the government first started to relax the lockdown and suggest workers, particularly teachers, should return to their workplaces there was much discussion about safe places of work and the use of Employment Rights Act 1996 s44 that gives workers the qualified right not to work if they feel that the working environment is unsafe to do so.

You can read the rest of the article in the Morning Star by clicking here.