EDM 171 - Supreme Court ruling on Tesco and fire and rehire practices
That this House welcomes the Supreme Court judgment yesterday in the case of Tesco Stores Ltd v Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and others; notes that the outcome protects workers’ rights to retained pay and essential rules that fire and rehire cannot be used to undermine pay and conditions; congratulates USDAW for supporting their members through what has been a protracted legal process and is encouraged that the highest court in this land agrees that fire and rehire is not a lawful practice; and further welcomes the Government's New Deal for Workers which will ban this awful practice as well as increase workers’ pay, ban the use of exploitative zero-hour contracts and give workers employment protection from day one.
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw general secretary says: “We were obviously delighted to secure a victory for our members in the Supreme Court, but remain concerned that ‘fire and rehire’ is still available to employers as a tactic to reduce terms and conditions of employment. I urge employers not to go down that route because it has no place in modern industrial relations, is morally indefensible and, as we have demonstrated, challengeable in the courts.
“The real answer now is a legal change to end the practice of ‘fire and rehire’ and remove this Victorian-style practice. Labour is committed to bringing forward measures as part of the New Deal for Workers and we look forward to seeing the details of that in the Employment Rights Bill, which was announced in the King’s Speech. So, we welcome the EDM tabled by Tracy Gilbert and we will continue to work with ministers on improving workers’ rights to deliver fairer employment standards.”
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is one of the fastest growing unions in the TUC and the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter/X @UsdawUnion