It's time to end the political ping pong and pass the Employment Rights Bill, writes Katrina Murray MP

The day after the last debate on the Employment Rights Bill in the Commons, I got a phone call from my friend – let’s call her Sally – who I used to work with. The question she asked put all of this into perspective for me:

“If the Employment Rights Bill had been in place two years ago, would I still have my job?”

The reason why the answer to that question is “yes” is precisely why the amendments from Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords must be defeated today.

The situation Sally was in is not unusual. She was a nurse, and due to the physical nature of her specialism and her chronic health issues, she could not maintain her full-time contracted hours. After a negotiation with management, it was agreed that, as a reasonable adjustment for her disability, a special contract would be granted.

She would work on the nurse bank for an agreed number of hours each week, but it would be a zero-hours contract. The hours would always be required, but it would give her the flexibility to work in a way that suited her and the organisation she worked for.

This worked for nine years - on a contract where she had no guarantees beyond that of an established relationship and goodwill. Despite an organisational policy stating she should have been given a contract with guaranteed hours, she thought it was fine because she trusted everyone involved.

And then it changed. New managers didn’t understand what had been agreed. Sally was told that she wasn’t getting the hours anymore. Her zero-hours contract remained - she was still employed - she just wasn’t being given any shifts.

In the end, Sally’s contract ended because she hadn’t done any shifts. The organisation lost a good worker; Sally is now one of those people who isn’t working because of her ill health.

In every sector where zero-hours contracts are used — and abused — trade union representatives have met people like Sally. All it takes for a situation to change is a change of management.

That’s why the Employment Rights Bill is so important for people like my friend Sally and the over a million other people on a zero-hours contract in the UK.

Labour’s manifesto promised that everyone has the right to be on a guaranteed hours contract that reflects the hours they actually work. If these new laws were in place, Sally would have been able to access a guaranteed hours contract and keep her job.

And if they prefer a zero-hours contract? They can stay on one. This levels the playing field, giving the employee much-needed flexibility.

But the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords want to scrap these reasonable changes that would tip the balance back towards working people. After being defeated once in the Commons in their attempts to water down the Bill, they’ve come back for more with a new confusing “opt out” system.

Their proposal would delay the process of getting a guaranteed hours contract, and in all likelihood, an opt-out would end up being added to contracts as standard, so workers would never receive an offer of a guaranteed hours contract.

As the Employment Rights Bill returns to the Commons today for the latest round of ‘ping pong’, we need to vote down these damaging amendments and give all working people the security and certainty of a contract that reflects their real hours.

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Katrina Murray is the Member of Parliament for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, and a member of the Trade Union Group of Labour MPs Executive

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