Usdaw has submitted motions on the need to reform Universal Credit to create a proper social security safety net and help make work pay, along with a call to invest in skills and training to meet new technology challenges. Usdaw has also tabled amendments to motions on miscarriage leave, along with driving up employment rights and removing anti-trade union laws.
Paddy Lillis - Usdaw general secretary says: “Universal Credit was supposedly intended to simplify and improve access to social security, make it easier for people to manage the move into work and reduce administrative costs; however, it entirely fails to meet these aims. We are calling on the Labour Government to positively promote properly funded social security and employment reform by urgently convening a taskforce to make work pay, support people into decent jobs, end poverty, offer a proper safety net and promote equality.
“Over the last 14 years, the Conservative Government significantly underfunded training and skills provisions for working people. In addition to scrapping the Union Learning Fund in England, the Tories oversaw an Apprenticeship Levy scheme which has seen apprenticeship starts fall by a third and £3.5bn transferred from training budgets to the Treasury. Working people must be given the best chances of succeeding in the workplaces of the future and to do that, the Labour government must deliver a whole new skills framework.
“Losing a baby at any stage of pregnancy can have devastating and lifelong impacts on emotional and physical wellbeing. The devastation surrounding miscarriage, and the stigma surrounding such loss, leave too many parents struggling with often little or no support to deal with their grief at work. Low-paid workers and those in insecure, temporary employment are amongst those commonly excluded from statutory parental bereavement leave specifically, and carer-friendly employment rights more broadly. This situation is wholly unacceptable, and we call on the TUC to campaign for the introduction of a day-one right to paid miscarriage leave.
“Labour’s new deal for workers is crucial to helping make work pay and improving our members’ lives. We are calling on the new Government to ensure that workers across the UK are covered by the provisions of the full implementation of the new deal and that they utilise all available avenues to continually drive-up employment rights. We are also calling on the TUC to continue to campaign for the full removal of all anti-trade union legislation.
“For the first time in 14 years, Congress convenes with Labour in power, providing trade unions with a government that will listen to our members’ worries and concerns. We look forward to a week of debate and policy making to improve workers’ lives and deliver for our members.”
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