Saying ‘Yes’ to a Social Europe
The following UK employment rights will be at risk if the UK leaves the European Union:
Paid Holidays and Working Time:
The Working Time Directive introduced a maximum 48-hour working week (although UK workers can opt out of this time limit), guaranteed rest periods and a statutory right to 20 days’ annual leave (28 days in the UK). The TUC says that the introduction of these rights reduced the number of people working excessive hours in the UK, with 7000,000 fewer employees working more than 40 hours a week compared to 1998. This also resulted in six million workers gaining improved entitlements to paid annual leave, two million to whom previously had no paid annual leave entitlement.
Maternity Rights and Parental Leave:
The EU Pregnant Workers Directive provides protections for pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace, and the right to paid time off for antenatal appointments. The Parental Directive gives working parents the right to take up to 18 weeks’ parental leave per child, and to time off for urgent family reasons.
Equal Pay:
EU law enshrines the principal of equal pay for work of equal value – which was omitted from the Equal Pay Act introduced in the UK in 1970. A number of EU court rulings have strengthened the application of equal pay principle in the UK
Anti-Discrimination Rights:
The EU Equal Treatment Directive underpinned the introduction in the UK of legislative protection against discrimination on the basis of age, religion or
belief and sexual orientation. It also provided an EU underpinning of existing UK law on sex, race and disability discrimination. Anti-discrimination directives have also widened the scope and strengthened the legal basis for making claims against discrimination.
Rights for Atypical Workers:
Directives in the 1990s ensured that workers on part-time and fixed-term contracts received equal treatment to those on full-time or permanent contracts. The TUC says that around 400,000 part-time employees in the UK have benefited from equal treatment (around three-quarters of whom were women), while the Fixed Term Employee (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations have led to significant improvements in pay and conditions, increased job security, and better access to occupational pensions.
Agency Workers:
The EU Agency Workers Directive agreed in 2008 required equal treatment for agency workers in terms of paid holidays and other entitlements for agency workers, as well as equal pay for some. But the UK has implemented the regulations with derogations, meaning not all agency workers are properly covered by equal treatment provisions in relation to pay.
TUPE Protections:
The EU Transfer of Undertakings Directive underpins UK regulations ensuring that employees’ contractual entitlements transfer to the new employer, including collectively agreed pay and conditions and continuity of employment. This helps to ‘ameliorate the detrimental effects of outsourcing, including the erosion of pay and conditions’, according to the TUC.
Information and Consultation:
EU legislation underpins the rights of worker representatives to be consulted during redundancies and business transfers (the Collective Redundancies Directive and the Acquired Rights Directive). The 2002 EU directive on information and consultation provided a broader right for employees to be informed and consulted on the economic and employment situation affecting their workplace. The Transnational Work Council Directive obliges companies with 1,000 or more employees and at least 150 in two or more member states to set up a works council to inform and consult employees on transnational matters where workers request this.
Health and Safety:
Much of UK health and safety law is underpinned by EU legislation, notably the EU Health & Safety Framework Directive which established broad obligation on employers to evaluate and reduce workplace risks. Other directives cover the management of specific workplace risks and exposure to particular hazards,
protection of groups of workers (including pregnant women and young workers), or particular sectors such as construction or offshore work. Unions have used complaints to the European Commission to gain changes to UK legislation when there were inconsistencies with EU standards. Forty-one out of 65 new health and safety regulations introduced in the UK between 1997 and 2009 originated in the EU.
Source: TUC Report
Comment:
Brexit have a plan for a top 100 regulations, quoted by Gove and Johnson as ‘red tape, to be burned. This is a long list of environmental and working rights including Agency workers, sex discrimination, air quality, asbestos etc… Don’t let them turn the clock back and remove protections.
Campaigning for a Europe for working people
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