Britain Waters Down Workers’ Rights Bill To Ease Business Concerns
Keir Starmer has tried to strike a difficult balance that delivers on his Labour Party’s election pledges to expand workers’ rights without stifling growth and alienating corporate Britain.
The UK government dropped a key measure from its flagship workers’ rights package in a bid to quell concerns of businesses who had warned the legislation would damage growth and employment.
The employment rights bill will no longer award so-called day one protections against unfair dismissal, the government said in a statement on Thursday. Instead, the qualifying period for a employee to make an unfair dismissal claim against an employer will be reduced to six months from its current two years, they said.
The move to water down the workers’ rights package appears to be an attempt to win over businesses following a budget by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves on Wednesday that raised taxes largely to fund benefit increases and expand her fiscal buffer.
Chief executive officers of some of Britain’s biggest companies took aim at the government in response, after it sought to shore up the country’s finances with £26 billion ($34 billion) of tax rises.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has tried to strike a difficult balance that delivers on his Labour Party’s election pledges to expand workers’ rights without stifling growth and alienating corporate Britain.
In April, the country’s five biggest business lobby groups penned a joint letter criticizing the reforms, saying they would damage growth and employment. But labor unions are piling pressure on the government to implement the promised measures.
