19 April 2018

Labour movement think tank the Institute for Employment Rights (IER) is to open a Scotland division.

The workplace rights specialists, whose Manifesto for Labour Law has been adopted by the shadow cabinet and forms part of the legislative programme proposed by a Jeremy Corbyn government, told a packed Morning Star fringe meeting that "Scotland is not immune to the chronic abuses of employment and trade union rights that plague the UK economy."

Director Carolyn Jones said funding for IER Scotland had been secured from Unite Scotland, Unison Scotland and RMT Scotland, but she urged more unions to sign up.

The IER was now "preparing for power", she said, noting that shadow chancellor John McDonnell had warned the institute an election could be called at any time and Labour needed an "off the shelf" legislative programme to empower working people.

"Given the government is still spending money on bombs rather than babies, a change cannot come soon enough," she said.

"From low pay and unequal pay, through bogus self-employment and insecure contracts to zero hours, to unfair dismissal, of the denial of the right to join a union, the lack of real employment rights can be documented in the growth of inequality in a Scotland, where 1 per cent of the population own as much of the wealth as 50%," retired Unison NEC member Jane Carolan, who is lined up to pioneer the IER Scotland initiative, told the meeting.

This article originally appeared in the Morning Star