Want to keep up to date on Welsh politics? Sign up and get political news sent straight to your inbox Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

The spectre of a chaotic Tory Brexit looms over Wales.

One of the ways that we are better prepared than the rest of the UK is because of the new, modern relationships between Government, business and trades unions that we have created in the devolution era, under the umbrella of social partnership.

We have used our legislative powers to dis-apply UK anti trades union legislation, introduced codes of practice in respect of employment standards, established ethical supply chains, condemned the practice of blacklisting and other nefarious anti-union practices, protected agricultural workers and abolished zero hours contracts in the care sector.

Working alongside the trades union and labour movement, we have taken a lead in the UK, promoting the importance of job security, decent pay and working conditions.

Yet in the circumstances we now face, we have to do even more. For too many, work is no longer the route out of poverty. Under the Tories, in-work poverty has increased, mainly as a result of regressive welfare and taxation policies.

The number of workers in bogus self-employment increases each year, contracts are too vulnerable to exploitation and wages stagnate. Even organisations such as the World Bank now recognise that in countries where trades unions no longer have mass membership, workers are left with minimal rights and protections.

Despite equal pay legislation, women continue to bear the brunt of the pay gap and work place inequality. Margaret Thatcher’s dream of a flexible, exploitable workforce is gradually becoming a reality.

It is not all the fault of business. For many companies the only way they are able to compete with one another in an unfair market place is by cutting core costs which mean reducing the wage bill and putting workers onto minimum rights, minimum wages contracts.

An extreme, right wing Brexit will make all this worse. The hard-line Brexiteers look forward to a Britain thrown to the wolves of deregulation. For Wales this would mean lower pay, less job security and an assault on terms and conditions which we enjoy today.

Add to this the emerging global technological changes in the form of automation and artificial intelligence and we have a potential perfect storm.

We need to address these problems not by tinkering at the edges, merely doing the best we can to limit the worst excesses of change and Tory policies.

Rather we must make a reality of an even stronger social and economic partnership: one based on the highest standards of training, education and skills but also one which recognises our workers as the country’s greatest asset.

That new social partnership will need the strength of a statutory foundation. A Social Partnership Act building on the last Labour Government’s Equality Act which, within the constraints of our legislative powers would put ethical standards of employment at the core of Welsh Government economic and social policy and public service delivery.

Each year we buy around £5bn of Welsh and Local Government Services and contracts that can run from hundreds of millions of pounds to hundreds of thousands. This can be one of the catalysts we use to encourage business to buy into a new social agenda.

We need to put the power of the public purse to work in ways which avoid the sort of catastrophic mistakes which led to the Carillion collapse, which puts quality of product, delivery and service at its core, an enforceable commitment to a real living wage, not just at contract level but all the way through the sub contract system, ensuring that terms and conditions are not overridden or watered down.

And that means proper contracts of employment, driving out false self-employment and gig economy devices, together with proper worker participation and representation through recognised trades unions and collective bargaining. Wales needs the strongest social partnership in which everyone has a share, everyone has an interest in success and everyone shares in the benefit.

Of course there are limits to what we can do alone. We desperately need to be able to work hand in hand with a Labour Government in Westminster. In the meantime, we can still set up a fair work framework which would be the envy of the rest of the UK.

We already have a Fair Work Commission, established by Labour Ministers in Wales. Now, just as Wales led the way in the establishment of the NHS for the rest of the UK, we can lead the way in setting up a new model of social partnership to manage the social and economic challenges of the 21st century. There is no more Welsh motto than ‘stronger together’, and never have we needed it more than we do today.