Yesterday afternoon, I hand-delivered a 6,000-strong letter to Vince Cable at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, saying we need more hiring, not more firing. The timing couldn’t have been more crucial.
Last year, David Cameron asked a venture capitalist called Adrian Beecroft, who has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party, to write a report outlining his suggested changes to our rights at work.
After months of delay, Labour MPs forced the Government to finally publish his report on Monday night. That report fulfilled all our worst fears – if Beecroft gets his way, nobody will be safe in their job, as employers will be able to fire at will.
This is an attack on every single one of us. Will you email your MP now?
Mr Beecroft made his intentions crystal clear in the draft of the report that was leaked at the weekend. He wrote:
“the downside of the proposal is that some people would be dismissed simply because their employer doesn’t like them. While that is sad I believe it is a price worth paying…..”
Unsurprisingly, these words didn’t make it into the published version of the report!
But the proposal to take away job security from every single working person in Britain by introducing “no fault dismissal” is only the beginning. Without offering a shred of evidence, the Beecroft Report claims that ripping up rights at work across the board will create jobs and help end the recession.
There is a real risk that the Government will action Beecroft’s plans to scrap our rights. Their austerity programme is making the economy worse, not better, and has pushed us into a double dip recession.
Up until now, Vince Cable’s Business Department has led the way on watering down rights at work, claiming that doing so will create growth – his department is still consulting on whether or not to implement no fault dismissal. There is a real risk that substantial parts of the Beecroft report could become law.
Email your MP now to ask them to oppose this attack on our rights at work.
Ordinary people did not cause this recession – we should not be paying the price by having our rights at work ripped up.
Regards
Byron Taylor (TULO Campaigner)
