The pandemic has bought into sharp focus the imbalance of power in the workplace that trade unions and the Labour Party have long sought to rectify. Wages have stagnated for over a decade, and work is becoming increasingly insecure.

Since the Tories came to power in 2010, in-work poverty, low pay, and financial insecurity have become rampant. Incomes have stagnated and many workers have experienced real terms pay decline. In-work poverty has hit new highs, with one in six working households in poverty.

Wages have suffered a decade of stagnation – the worst in over a century.

Throughout the pandemic, working people have been keeping the country on its feet. They worked on the front line, caring for society’s most vulnerable, keeping essential services running and keeping food on shop shelves, many in insecure roles without proper rights and protections.

The Living Wage Foundation estimates that over a million key workers are in insecure work, lacking basic rights and protections, with one in nine in insecure work across the economy as a whole.

Labour’s New Deal for Working People, launched by Angel a Rayner at Conference 2021 and drawn up in partnership with Labour’s affiliated unions, is a comprehensive plan to improve the lives of working people by strengthening individual and collective rights.

Keir Starmer has promised that a Labour Government will write this plan into law within 100 days of taking office.

Under Labour, work will be more secure and better-paid, and unions and individuals will have stronger rights to redress the power imbalance in the workplace.

Working people need better rights, stronger unions and a Labour Government to win the new deal at work they deserve.

For more information, go to http://www.labourunions.org.uk/newdeal