The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Rebecca Evans, and amendments 2, 3 and 4 in the name of Darren Millar. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected.

Item 7 on the agenda this afternoon is the Plaid Cymru debate on workers' rights, and I call on Leanne Wood to move the motion.

Motion NDM7034 Rhun ap Iorwerth

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the importance of International Workers’ Day and the role of trade unions in securing the rights of workers in Wales.

2. Notes that Wales is lagging behind the rest of the UK when it comes to fair wage levels, with many people in Wales on wages 30 per cent lower than the rest of the UK population.

3. Believes that legislation should be updated to:

a) deliver ‘Fair Work’ using policy and funding levers and raising collective bargaining coverage;

b) protect workers’ rights through more effective enforcement; and

c) embed social partnership and collective bargaining into the fabric of Welsh work life.

4. Calls on the Welsh Government to ban the use of zero hours contracts in all devolved Welsh public services and associated supply chains.

5. Calls on the Welsh Government to include a commitment to introducing a social partnership act and associated timetable to the current government’s legislative programme.

Motion moved.

Diolch. I'd like to begin by thanking our partners in the trade union movement for their work in supporting Plaid Cymru to develop this motion. Today is International Workers' Day, and we are pleased to be able to host today's debate. We believe it's important to mark the day by giving Members in this Chamber the chance to voice support and solidarity for workers and to contribute to the debate on workers' rights. TUC Cymru want to make Wales a fair work nation. Plaid Cymru shares these basic values. Surely, we all want workers in Wales to benefit from collective bargaining and to have their say on pay, workplace conditions, as well as the terms and conditions on their contracts. I'm sure that most Members will be more than familiar with these matters from our casework. Time and time again, we hear about unfair labour market practices, low pay, dodgy contracts, discrimination and illegal employment practices and so on, and so on.

It's true to say that unemployment has fallen in Wales since the start of the financial crisis, but that doesn't mean that there has been a rise in pay. Wales is blighted by low-paid work. Around a quarter of jobs in this country were paid below the voluntary living wage in 2017, with regional variations to that figure. For example, one in five jobs in Caerphilly were low paid; one in three jobs in Blaenau Gwent were low paid. In 2016, roughly 17,000 jobs in Wales were paid below the statutory minimum wage. The Low Pay Commission found that the majority of underpaid workers are women, part-time, and hourly paid. This, in turn, has led to an increase in in-work poverty. Unlike the past, work today does not necessarily lead to a route out of poverty. Pay, hours of work, changes to social security benefits have all had an impact and a detrimental impact on our communities. Between 2014 and 2017, there was a 10 per cent rise in the number of children living in relative poverty where all working-age adults were in work. There is much more I could say about zero-hours contracts, for example, that contribute to this, but my colleague Helen Mary Jones will cover that shortly. 

The Senedd may not have all the economic levers to deal with all these problems, but there are things that the Government can do, and we are calling on the Welsh Government in this motion to include a commitment to introducing a social partnership Act to kick-start a cultural change in Wales's labour market, where the workers' collective voice is equal to the voice of employers—a Welsh way of strengthening workers' rights that we have a long history of championing. So, let's make sure that we keep that tradition alive.

We also want to see a clear commitment to this in the Government's legislative programme. But I have to say, we found it more than disappointing that a Labour Government has essentially gutted our motion by deleting every point after point 1, turning it into another meaningless self-congratulatory statement, with wishy-washy words and a long kick into even longer grass. I know, because I shared a panel with Martin Mansfield from Wales TUC, that they want to see this legislation passed with a clear time frame. 

So, I look forward to hearing the Government's justification for amending the motion in such a way, and I appeal to all of those Labour Members on the back benches who value their relationships with the trade unions to back us on this. Show them, on International Workers' Day, of all days, that you will put workers' rights above the party whip on this day today.

Thank you. I have selected the four amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. So, I call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans.

Amendment 1—Rebecca Evans

Delete all after Point 1 and replace with:

Commends the record of successive Welsh Governments since 1999 in developing effective social partnership structures with trades unions and business in Wales.

Notes this approach has helped deliver tangible rights for workers in Wales through the Trade Union (Wales) Act and the Agricultural Wages Order which have overturned UK Government legislation.

Welcomes the actions developed through social partnership by the Welsh Government to eliminate exploitative zero hours contracts in Wales and the work it has done through the Code of Practice on Ethical Employment in Supply Chains.

Recognises the Welsh Government’s commitment to make Wales a Fair Work nation.

Notes the Welsh Government’s commitment to develop a Social Partnership Act and to introduce it in this Assembly term.

Calls on the UK Government to ensure that as we leave the EU it commits to dynamic and legally binding standards on the protection and enforcement of fair work across the UK.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally.

Thank you. I call on Russell George to move amendments 2, 3 and 4, tabled in the name of Darren Millar.

Amendment 2—Darren Millar

Delete point 4.

Amendment 3—Darren Millar

Delete point 5 and replace with:

Calls on the Welsh Government to consult on the development of a social partnerships act.

Amendment 4—Darren Millar

Add as new point at end of motion:

Welcomes the UK Government's commitment to protect workers' rights post-Brexit.

Amendments 2, 3 and 4 moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I'd like to thank Plaid for bringing forward this debate today, and also say that I will move the amendments in the name of my colleague Darren Millar.

Can I say I support the vast majority of Plaid's motion? I particularly support their points 1, 2 and 3, and I look at point 2 of their motion, noting—it's a noting motion—that Wales is lagging behind the rest of the UK when it comes to fair wage levels, with many people in Wales on wages 30 per cent lower than the rest of the UK population. That is a sad fact that that's correct, but disappointing that that's the case, and I do think that that is a result of Government, and since we've had devolution 20 years ago, that gap has only widened, which makes this all the more disappointing. The Taylor review of modern working practices states—and I'm quoting here—that

'Flexibility in the labour market is important and must be retained in order to keep participation rates high', and the report cites the 2017 labour force survey, which found that one fifth of people on zero-hours contracts are in full-time education, and 68 per cent of those on contracts do not want more hours. Certainly, the implication there is that zero-hours contracts do suit the vast majority of people on them.

Will you take an intervention?

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you. I'm grateful to you for taking an intervention. There is a difference, though, between zero-hours contracts, which put all the power into the hands of the employer, and flexible working contracts, where the power is more evenly balanced. I don't know if you've had family members who've been working on zero-hours contracts, but I have, and, as the TUC general secretary said, I've never met anybody working on a zero-hours contract who wanted that contract. They might want the flexibility but they didn't want the zero-hours contract where the power is with the employer.

I do think that there's a balance here that has to be struck, and clearly we're on a different side of that balance, but what zero-hours contracts do offer is they do offer that flexibility for workers, offering workers patterns that suit their personal circumstances and give them the ability to work in a way that suits them. Zero-hours contracts also provide the flexibility for businesses, allowing them to meet customer demand at busier times as well. That's one of the things that also is important here, and this is why my colleagues and I on this side can't support that part of your motion. But I do suspect that what we want to achieve is the same—it's just there's a difference about how we achieve it, and there's a different balance here in that regard. But workers should be able to secure fair work, and employees should be able to have the right to ask their employer for more predictable and stable contracts if they prefer. This is the crux of our amendment, taking the approach, here, of the UK Government in their commitments to protect workers' rights as well. We do need to have an approach that empowers workers, gives them the ability to choose what contract best suits their personal and financial requirements. Whilst the European Union sets out the minimum requirements that workers should enjoy, the UK Government has consistently exceeded them, and has led the way in enhancing the rights of workers. This includes expanding upon EU maternity entitlements and parental leave. New proposals include providing greater protection for pregnant women [Interruption.]—in a moment—and new parents from redundancy, and extending current protections enjoyed by parents to other parents, such as those returning from shared parental leave. Yes.

So, with what you've said, why will Theresa May not sign up to the charter of fundamental rights? Why is she insistent that legislatively it is excluded from any link with Welsh workers' rights, UK workers' rights?

Well, I've already stated that the UK Government has exceeded the protections that are under EU law. I've made that point, and I would finish by saying that I do agree with Leanne Wood in regard to the disappointment of a Government that has deleted all of Plaid's motion, most of which we can agree with. For that reason—[Interruption.] For that reason, we won't be supporting the Government's amendment.

Thanks to Plaid Cymru for bringing forward this debate on workers' rights. I'll speak proudly of the work carried out by this Welsh Government and other members of these benches in promoting those rights. For some of us, this is a real and personal issue, and in my case it was 30 years as a trade union official fighting for and defending workers' rights every single day. I remain a proud member of Unison and continue to support and admire the work that they do for public service workers across the UK and beyond. As the daughter of a Transport and General Workers Union shop steward it's clear to me that some things, like belonging to a trade union, just happen to be in the blood.

In the years that I spent as a trade union official I recall working alongside colleagues like Vaughan Gething and Mick Antoniw as employment lawyer partners in taking forward personal and collective cases that benefitted many thousands of people—benefits that were gained by enforcing their workplace rights. I also recall working closely with Eluned Morgan in the Lords on our opposition to the Trade Union Bill, seeking to defend workers in Wales against the Tories' race to the bottom, and the pride in seeing this Welsh Labour Government bring forward legislation to protect Wales from the attacks on trade union organisation in the public sector.

Will you take an intervention? There's no doubt your contribution to workers' rights and the trade union movement is commendable. Do you therefore regret the amendment that's been put down by the Government today to delete all the substance out of our motion, effectively, and just congratulate itself without thinking about what it can do in the future to further protect those workers' rights?

No, I'm quite happy with the amendment and I'll explain a bit further why as I go through. I would say that I'm sorry, Russell, despite what you say, the Tories' solution to the problems in the workplace is always to attack workers and those who represent them and while ignoring the fat cats in the boardrooms with their bonuses and while workers are constantly facing austerity and pay freezes through these difficult periods. On these benches, however, we have the ingrained and instinctive values that still help to shape the work that we carry out in this Senedd. In the period of devolution, we've seen successive Welsh Labour-led Governments taking forward a workers' rights agenda, embracing social partnership, working towards a fair work nation, promoting collective bargaining, protecting and funding the Wales Union Learning Fund, abolishing zero-hours contracts in social care, introducing codes on ethical employment and procurement, establishing the economic contract, and, as already mentioned, repealing the worst elements of the vindictive Tory Trade Union Act here in Wales, and, finally, that is committed to developing a social partnership Act in this Assembly term. There are so many proud achievements by our Labour movement, but, having just marked international Workers' Memorial Day, I think it reminds us that this work is far from complete, whether that is work on health and safety, on protecting the gains that we've made on equality, or seeing more workers protected by collective bargaining. And I was very proud to see that moving towards mandatory collective bargaining was actually part of Labour's general manifesto in 2017, showing that, without doubt, Labour remains the workers' party.

But we couldn't have this debate, of course, without mentioning Brexit, and it has been touched on by others. If we leave the European Union, we will need to redouble our efforts to ensure that every right won by workers across Europe remains at the heart of workers' rights in the UK too. We cannot and will not allow workers' rights to be sacrificed at the altar of deregulation and freemarketing that the arch Brexiteers are desperate to see. In or out of the EU, much remains to be done, and some of us will never give up that fight, because, for some of us, fighting for workers' rights is just in our DNA. 

I'm very grateful for the opportunity to take part in this important event, this important debate. It's great for us all as a Senedd to be able to celebrate International Workers' Day, and we do this, of course, in the context of a very moving statement from Mick Antoniw, remembering that Sunday was Workers' Memorial Day.

Now, Mick reminded us of the theme of that day, which is to remember the dead and fight for the living. And I want to focus on my disappointment in the way that the Government has chosen to amend this motion with regard to zero-hours contracts. Most people on zero-hours contracts don't want to be on zero-hours contracts, and I just want to give a few facts from research that's been published in February this year by the Trades Union Congress. People on zero-hours contracts are more than twice as likely to work night shifts, and are paid a third less an hour on average than other workers. The median hourly pay before tax for someone on a zero-hours contract was £7.70, compared to £11.80 for other workers. Again, 23 per cent of zero-hours contracts have compulsory night work.

Now, the thing about a zero-hours contract, as opposed to a flexible working relationship, is that all the power is in the hands of the employer. How are people expected to live when they do not know from one week to the next how many hours they're going to work? Flexible working does work for some people, but a zero-hours contract is not flexible working, and we've got into the habit—and I'm afraid we saw this a little bit with Russell George—of using these interchangeably. And it's not the same thing. Flexible contracts give equal power to the worker and to the employer; zero-hours contracts, all the power sits in the hands of the employer, and that isn't fair.

So, our original motion says this—clause 4

'Calls on the Welsh Government to ban the use of zero hours contracts in all devolved Welsh public services and associated supply chains'.

The amendment says—it

'Welcomes the actions developed through social partnership by the Welsh Government to eliminate exploitative zero hours contracts in Wales and the work it has done through the Code of Practice'.

Well, that implies that there's such a thing as a zero-hours contract that isn't exploitative, and nobody on these benches here believes that that is true. Zero-hours contracts are a nasty American import that we should not have here in any of the countries in those islands, and certainly not here in Wales. [Interruption.] I'm very sorry, I didn't see. Mick.

Thank you for taking the intervention. I don't think anyone disagrees with the narrative you've given, but, in the format that clause is, do you accept that it is actually outside our legislative competence?

I was about to come to that, because of course in terms of banning—legally banning—zero-hours contracts we do not have the competence to do that. But our motion doesn't ask for that. What our motion asks is for the Welsh Government to use its economic power to keep those zero-hours contracts out of those areas of service over which they have control—

'devolved Welsh public services and associated supply chains'.

If the Welsh Government chose to ban them in public services through various service level agreements and the various ways in which their public services are managed, they could do that. If they chose to then, through the contracts that they let and the contracts that public bodies let, to put in a clause that banned it, that would be perfectly lawful within UK legislation as it stands. Of course, on these benches, we feel we should have the power to legislate, but let us use the power that we do have. 

Now, have some steps been made forward? Certainly. But what we're asking for is something specific. I, like Leanne Wood, am really disappointed that, on something where we would have expected that across most of these benches, and indeed colleagues in other parts of the Chamber, we could have broad agreement, you have chosen as a Government to take a fish knife to our motion and gut it and be just self congratulatory about what has already been done. I don't think that's really in the spirit of the way we put this motion forward and how we hoped that you would react. 

So, let me come back to what Mick said: remember the dead and fight for the living. We do not have the power here yet to ban zero-hours contracts. I do not understand why the Welsh Government will not use the power that it does have to reduce them.

Whilst I have a number of speakers, I do have to call the Minister, and Plaid Cymru have to respond to their debate, so I apologise to those who were not called. I now call the Minister for Housing and Local Government, Julie James.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. As a political party that was created to unite trade unionists and socialists and to give voice to the working class, and as a Government that believes in equality, social justice and opportunity for all, we absolutely recognise the importance of International Workers' Day as a means to highlight the plight of many workers and to promote workers' rights. But, as a party with an indelible link to trade unionism—and like Dawn Bowden I too am a proud member of Unison, which I have been for some 40-odd years now—successive Welsh Governments have developed and deployed excellent working relationships with employers and trade unions over the last 20 years. We have replaced the remaining points of the motion to set that record straight, because the motion is not written and designed to get consensus across the Chamber, it's written as an attack, and that's why we reject it and replaced it with ours, and I'm very happy that we have done so. [Interruption.] Certainly.

Do you welcome that earlier this year the First Minister has given an outright, an absolute commitment to already introduce a social partnership Act and for the abolition of section 1 of the Equality Act 2010 and that that work is under way?

Absolutely, and I'm coming onto that in a moment. Social partnership has indeed, as Dawn Bowden said, been part of our DNA from the outset of devolution. We recognise its critical role in shaping effective policy and we have established many mechanisms to support this, such as the Welsh Ministers' business scheme, and, in the early days of devolution, the business partnership council, the council for economic development, and latterly a social partners strategy group and the Wales social partners unit.

I also agree with Dawn Bowden that we are rightly proud of our model of social partnership. It has indeed helped to deliver tangible rights for workers in Wales through the Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017 as she mentioned, the agricultural wages Order, and through the ethical code of procurement in supply chains. The guiding principles on the appropriate use of non-guaranteed hours arrangements in Welsh devolved public services is an excellent example of how successful this partnership can be. Nevertheless, I do absolutely recognise many of the points and issues that Leanne and Helen Mary raised. I absolutely agree with them that we need to do more for Wales to become a fair work nation. For that to happen, both our policies and our supporting institutional arrangements will need to work together to shape the nature of work and employment in Wales. We appointed—[Interruption.] Yes, of course.

A very specific point about your amendment around zero-hours contracts: as it is written, it says

'to eliminate exploitative zero hours contracts'.

I invite you to take this opportunity to make it clear that the Government believes that all zero-hours contracts are exploitative and that that's there to describe all zero-hours contracts and not to suggest that there are zero-hours contracts that are not exploitative. 

I take the point that you make, and actually I agreed with much of what you said in your speech, and I think the vast majority of zero-hours contracts are indeed exploitative. The issue there is the control issue that you rightly outlined. I want to just qualify it a little, because it is about control. There are zero-hours contracts where the control is shared and people need those flexible arrangements, but they only work where the worker is in control of that arrangement, and that's an arrangement you don't very frequently see. So it's a very small caveat to your 'all', because I don't think there are very many of those. So, we are very keen on stopping exploitative zero-hours contracts, and we are very keen to make sure that some of the issues that you've both raised around the way that workers are treated and the way that they have an unequal power relationship are addressed. But, it is outside our devolution settlement, and so what we'll be doing—and I'll just start to outline that now—is using the levers we've got to their maximum effect to eradicate that as much as we possibly can and to lead the way for the areas of the Welsh economy where we don't have direct power. For what it's worth, I, too, think we should have that power, just to be clear.

But, as I said, for Wales to become a fair work nation, both our policies and our supporting institutional arrangements will need to work together. So, the commission that we appointed, the independent Fair Work Commission, will be publishing its report this week, on 3 May, and its recommendations will help shape our thinking about how we might enhance employment opportunities across Wales. Social partnership will be absolutely key to driving this forward. It will rely on getting the balance right in the relationships between the partners in order to take them with us and get the leverage that we want. It will be important to ensure that agreements reached through social partnership are implemented effectively.

That's why we have already, as Mick Antoniw said in his intervention, committed to introducing a social partnership Act in this Assembly term in order to provide greater clarity about the authority of social partnership bodies and their effect. And, if and when we leave the EU, we will indeed be looking to ensure there is no weakening of existing employment rights, that new trade agreements protect employment standards, and that future UK employment legislation keeps pace with progressive EU employment legislation. It's not enough, Russell George, to stand still and rest on our laurels. We need to make sure that Wales keeps its place in the world as a good place to live and work, a good place to do business. And for that to happen, both the employers and the workers need to recognise that that's what we are and that is why, Dirprwy Lywydd, we will be bringing forward the social partnership Act, we will be looking to make Wales a fair work nation, and that is why we had the independent report. And that's why I'm very pleased to have been able to put the record straight in this debate today. Diolch.

Can I now call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As spokesperson for Plaid Cymru on the economy, what I hope or what I’m trying to do consistently is to try to develop policy and hold the Welsh Government to account as part of that work of strengthening our economy and making Wales more prosperous. But the worker has to be at the heart of that, not just because ensuring the worker’s rights is the right and just thing to do, but because a worker, of course, does deserve fair treatment—in pay and terms and training and safety and so forth, to prevent exploitation, because that in turn is going to be good for our economy. If a worker feels there’s value to the work that he or she does, and has fair recognition for that work and becomes a true stakeholder in their workplace, then that worker is going to be more productive. We know that raising productivity levels is vital as we work towards strengthening our economy. All of it is interwoven.

Both my parents, as it happens, became union leaders, so it was perhaps no wonder that joining a union, the National Union of Journalists in my case, was a pretty natural step when I started in the world of work. The value of unions was clear to me then, as it is now. Unions are good for pay and well-being levels, for job security. Where you have unions, good training is more likely to take place, equality issues are more likely to be addressed through trade unions, unions help bring stability to a workplace, reducing turnover of staff, which is good for business. That brings us back to my earlier point: it's cyclical. Treating workers fairly, giving workers a voice is good for the economy as well as for the workers themselves. And there's plenty of evidence of the value that comes through ensuring that the worker has a true voice. 

What we want, of course, and the purpose of this motion today is to make work fairer, and that has to be done during a time when work is changing. Work patterns are changing. The gig economy is bringing new challenges, but unions are always trying to adapt to those changing circumstances. I always value being able to co-operate with the trade union movement in Wales.

In closing my comments on this motion today, I remind the Government that, as a result of the Wales TUC's latest campaign, we will hold the Government to account to make sure that there is no slippage on the promise of a move towards a social partnership Act—it is something that the trade union movement in Wales demands.

It is a real shame, I must say, that the Labour Government's amendment takes away most of our motion, especially, perhaps, the one on zero-hours contracts. Some people will be doing the maths and working out that that's the eighth time that Welsh Labour, in government, is turning down the opportunity to vote for a strong wording—a strong motion—on zero-hours contracts.

It's a shame that they're taking away our motion, or most of it. This motion was the result of work between us and our—and your—friends in the trade union movement in Wales, so perhaps you'd like to explain to them what was not acceptable in their words and in their demands that we brought to the Assembly today in this motion. But, let's all commit—

Will you take an intervention?

I was wrapping up, but, in a couple of seconds, yes.

I was just wondering—presumably, though, you do very much welcome the commitment of the First Minister to introduce a social partnership Act, and you're more than prepared to give support and to work with the Government, and all parties, in fact, to ensure that we deliver a social partnership Act this session.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to point out that our motion today made that commitment to move towards that social partnership Act. There's something very strangely tribal in the fact that you remove our commitment to asking for a social partnership Act and then put it in yourselves. Why not just support what the trade union movement was saying through our motion today that they wanted us to push?

The result is the same—the result is the same, of course. We wanted it, and we will hold the Government to account to make sure that you deliver it. But, people watching from outside will make their own judgement about what on earth is going on in removing our motion and replacing it with your own. 

Tribal politics aside, let's all commit to making Wales a fair work nation. Indeed, in response to Alun Davies from a sedentary position, this is serious politics, and serious politics is about working collegiately, where it's possible. In working together with our—and your—friends in the trade union movement, we had a motion today that asked this Government to take action that the trade union movement in Wales wants to see being taken. That's mature politics. But let's make Wales a fair work nation.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.