Brexit deal: are workers’ rights at threat?

The Labour Party and several trade unions have warned that Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal threatens workers’ rights and protections.

Speaking during the Commons Brexit debate on Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn said the prime minister’s proposed withdrawal agreement was “even worse” than Theresa May’s thrice-rejected deal. The Labour leader added that “as for workers’ rights, we cannot simply give this government a blank cheque”, the Daily Express reports.

Corbyn urged MPs to listen to Trade Union Congress (TUC) secretary Frances O’Grady, who said last week that the deal “would be a disaster for working people”.

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“It would hammer the economy, cost jobs and sell workers’ rights down the river,” O’Grady added.

What is in Johnson’s Brexit bill?

UK employers are currently subject to EU “level playing field” laws that mean countries in the bloc have to keep their rules and standards aligned.

Former PM May’s Brexit deal would have seen the UK leave the EU but remain in close alignment with EU regulations, ensuring that British bosses could not deviate from existing employment rules.

But Johnson’s Brexit deal removes references to the level playing field from the legally binding parts of the agreement and allows for more “divergence” from EU regulations, says The Guardian.

The government will have to decide how strong a commitment to EU rules it is prepared to make when it negotiates a free trade deal after Brexit.

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What has Labour said?

Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, claims the Government is deliberately moving away from EU regulations so that it can reduce workers’ rights.

He says the Government wants “a licence to deregulate” the economy so it can follow other “economic models” such as the US system, where companies “had far more power than the workforce”, the BBC reports.

And Corbyn has accused Johnson of “firing the starting gun on a race to the bottom” for employment rights.

Meanwhile, Labour’s shadow employment rights minister, Laura Pidcock, says that if Johnson’s Brexit deal is passed, “the future is bleak for working people”.

In an article for the Daily Mirror, Pidcock adds: “We should demand that Brexit is not used as an opportunity for the decimation of workers’ rights.”

What has No. 10 said?

The Goverment has pledged to report regularly on changes to employment laws and workers’ rights and insists it has no intention of reducing standards.

On Saturday, Johnson told Commons: “I have complete faith in this House to choose regulations that are in our best traditions of the highest standards of environmental protections and workers rights.

“No one anywhere in this chamber believes in lowering standards. We believe in improving them.”

Ministers have drawn attention to the government pledge of an employment reform bill to raise standards, as announced in the Queen’s Speech earlier this month.