Labour’s workers’ rights policy gets it all wrong – London Business News | Londonlovesbusiness.com

In her recent guest column for Mirror Online (August 24, 2024) Anna Whitehouse wrote ‘Hard pressed employees shouldn’t have to sign their life away when they sign on the dotted line’.

Apparently burnt out workers ‘exhaled’ when they saw the words ‘right to switch off’ on Labour’s to do list. If you ask me, the only ones who saw this irrational policy leaving bosses unable to contact their employees outside of normal working hours as a good thing were the lazy and the stupid.

But let’s plough on into the depths of Anna’s brave new world view that sees Angela Rayner’s flagship policy that Labour promises will promote a positive work-life balance for all workers, and see where it takes us.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on Rayner? After all, why would someone who has worked in Social Care, become a trade unionist, before becoming a Labour MP at 35 at the 2015 election, be expected to know anything about running a successful business? It’s like if I decided to promote myself as a fly-fishing expert with tips on how and where to catch the best fish. If you took my advice you’d end up shipwrecked in the North Sea, or nicked for poaching. Whatever the outcome you certainly won’t be eating freshly caught trout for supper that’s for sure.

Whitehouse goes on to characterise British workers as ‘unproductive seat-warmers’ who are woefully less productive than our French, German or even US counterparts. Amongst many things this bizarre idea that doing less work will make us more productive makes clear, is that Whitehouse has never been to the United States, or if she has, she wasn’t paying attention to their tough work culture.

Back up her theory, which sees her describe a former life, working at the office until 6:01pm, collecting her daughter from nursery, before logging back on at home, breaking just long enough to set her child in front of the television with Paw Patrol and lukewarm fish fingers.

What’s telling about this version of work is that Whitehouse sees it as a David and Goliath battle between bosses, characterised by the ‘Lord Sugar mentality’ that leaves workers mentally chained to rickety office chairs. And there you have it, the real reason why Labour and their fellow travellers are attacking business owners’ ability to actually call the shots in the ventures they have sunk their money, blood and sweat into. It’s not about good government, it’s a war on bosses.

Strangely however, I agree with the first part of this agenda; work-life balance and people’s mental health are important, but it makes no sense to attack businesses’ ability to be successful with hugely restrictive and costly laws. Over the last 30 odd years the number of employment law hoops bosses have had to jump through has increased at a steady rate. But with this new mob in power the anti-employer mind-set has increased by 1000%.

Before Labour was elected we already had the WFH sharks circling the boat, demanding the right to work from home, whether their employer likes it or not. The 4-day week brigade are also sensing their time has come, and people are even taking the ‘Money for Nothing’ Universal Basic Income crazies seriously, which if it’s brought in will leave us all in dire straits.

It will also do nobody any good to give workers full employment rights from day one of their contract, and longer to bring a former boss to a tribunal, after leaving a role. It will only make employees very cautious about hiring the wrong person, meaning workers who may have been given a chance to shine in the past, won’t get to sign on the dotted line.

Bosses should be good to their workers, treat them with respect, and make provisions to help them manage their work-life balance wherever possible. This should be a minimum requirement to be in business, but smashing all businesses with restrictive rules for contacting staff out of hours, is loading on costs for the majority of well-behaved companies.

The only outcome this anti-business attitude is going to produce is a stagnation of growth as businesses think twice about expanding and taking on new workers. Yes, businesses will suffer, and that is a huge issue for me, and when growth stalls people don’t get hired, and some will inevitably lose their jobs.

All this proves to me is that not only does Labour not understand business, but they don’t have a basic understanding of how the economy works either, and that’s the real bloody scary part. They are prepared to sacrifice the country’s economic well-being to make a political point that proves they are still in touch with the working man and woman. Ironically, all it proves is – they are not!

Like becoming a Premier League footballer, a doctor or a lawyer, a cabbie, or an apprentice plumber or builder, there is no other way to become highly skilled and successful, other than getting off your arse and working hard.

Ask yourself who would be more likely to win, an athlete only able to train two days a week, or their competition with full funding from the British Olympic Association (BOA) who can put in six days a week?

Less is not more in life, work and sport. It’s a no-brainer.