Proposed amendments to Work and Business

These amendments relate to the Work and Business Policy Consultation. They are merely ideas at present.  Nobody has agreed them.

We may wish to support the Labour Party Disabled Members Group policy proposals

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Line 45 Insert : “One Nation Labour will build an economy which creates sustainable economic growth in every region of the country. We know that key to this will be supporting micro, small and medium sized businesses. A growing sector that has the potential to increase employment opportunities at the same time as demonstrating that there is a more ethical model of doing business is the social enterprise, co-operative and not-for-profit economy.

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line 25 insert: “Employees of all grades with higher levels of control over their work (in terms of content, pacing of tasks, decision-making, etc.) have better health. Low control at work is associated with higher rates of heart disease, musculoskeletal pain, mental ill health and mortality – even when other risk factors (such as smoking) are accounted for. Interventions to improve control at work (for example rotating tasks, flexible working, employee participation in making company decisions, employee ownership/shares) have been found to improve health – with no detrimental effects on productivity. We will introduce measures to ensure that firms are  involving employees in the business so that job control is increased. In other European countries, such as Germany, “worker’s councils” are common place in businesses and they could be introduced here.”

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Line 12 delete “ratio of” insert “hourly”.

Line 14 insert “Companies and public bodies will be obliged to publish details of the hourly rates of pay of all employees, showing the number employed on each rate”.

Line 40 insert “In contrast One Nation Labour recognises the value of genuine employee ownership. Companies where employees own a significant stake in the company they work for now account for combined annual turnover in excess of £25 billion, more than 2% of GDP and growing. Evidence shows that employee owned businesses are more resilient and more successful than other more traditional models. One Nation Labour will support the growing employee owned sector but will never couple this with slashing employment rights. Which we believe is contradictory and counterproductive.”

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Line 37 insert “Demonising people on benefits has a detrimental effect on mental health and well-being, and emerging evidence shows that the governments “reforms” have negative consequences in relation to increasing suicide, self-harm and depression, for the existing population of people with mental illness but also possibly for the general population previously not having mental health problems.  The evidence also suggests that the reforms are having a negative impact on people in that they are reluctant to be discharged from mental health services, fearing that this will negatively impact on work capacity assessments.”