Laura Pidcock: social care workers, shop staff and teachers first in line for better pay under Labour Shadow minister says collective bargaining for millions of workers would be ‘incredibly transformative’

Social care workers, shop staff and teachers will be first in line for better pay and conditions in an “incredibly transformative” move towards collective bargaining for millions of workers under a Labour government, a shadow Cabinet minister has declared.

“The more I think about I’m blown away by what sort of transformation it will have” Laura Pidcock on Labour’s collective bargaining plans The i politics newsletter cut through the noise Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

Laura Pidcock, viewed as a rising star within the party, told i that Jeremy Corbyn would begin a huge roll-out of individual and trade union rights as an urgent priority.

Sparking ahead of the Labour conference beginning in Brighton on Saturday, she said she felt “shame and disappointment” that the Blair and Brown governments had not repealed Margaret Thatcher’s union legislation and vowed that Mr Corbyn would correct that failure to act.

She would head a new ministry for employment rights, which would be set up the day after a Labour election victory, taking responsibility for driving through immediate moves to increase the minimum wage to £10, outlaw zero-hours contracts and ban unpaid internships.

The shadow business minister said the “beating heart” of her new department would be a move towards re-establishing national collective bargaining setting minimum and legally-binding pay, terms and conditions for employers and employees in each sector of the economy.

Tackling ‘race to the bottom’

Ms Pidcock cited social care, retail and teaching as she said the party wanted initially to target sectors which have fared “particularly badly out of fragmentation, privatisation, race to the bottom on workers’ rights”.

She said: “There are really good social care employers that are upholding good terms and conditions for their workers and providing good standards of care.

“They are being undercut all the time by the not-so-good employers, so collective bargaining will be a relief for those good employers.”

She said the moves would have a “long-term incredible transformative effect”, adding: “The more I think about I’m blown away by what sort of transformation it will have.”

Close Corbyn ally

Ms Pidcock, who is regarded as a close Corbyn ally, said she wanted trade unions to be viewed as a “normal, rational healthy part of working life” as they are in many countries.

She argued that “huge levels of pay stagnation”, Britain’s long working hours and 14.3m people living in poverty were linked to legislation from the 1980s which limited unions’ activities.

“Margaret Thatcher’s legacy was to demonise workers being organised..it’s the oldest trick in the book to make people to make people think that something which is so in your interests is actually counter to your interests.”

She said: “A worker having as the very last resort to withdraw their labour isn’t something to be scared of, isn’t something to catastrophise or sensationalise.”