7. Plaid Cymru Debate: Workers' Rights

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:04 pm on 1 May 2019.

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Photo of Dawn Bowden Dawn Bowden Labour 5:04, 1 May 2019

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.