This is a huge moment. The Employment Rights Bill passed the Commons – a major step toward stronger rights for working people.

This is the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation, and it’s happening because of trade unionists and activists like you. From day one, our movement has led the charge, putting working people at the heart of Labour’s plan to raise wages, strengthen rights, and make work pay.

Trade unions, representing millions of working people, helped secure key new protections:

  • Stopping union-busting – blocking bad bosses from undermining worker organising and winning recognition.
  • Closing loopholes – so agency workers will benefit from the new provisions on zero and guaranteed hours contracts.
  • Introducing new rules – so social care workers in Scotland and Wales can also benefit from Fair Pay Agreements, bringing unions and employers together to agree pay and conditions.
  • Strengthening the new union access rights – to make it easier for unions to recruit, organise, and win a better deal.
  • Removing laws designed to tie unions in knots – so they can concentrate on doing their job and winning better pay and conditions.

These build on bold changes already in the Bill – stronger unfair dismissal protections, action plans to close the gender pay gap, a Fair Work Agency to enforce rights, repealing anti-union laws, and tackling workplace harassment. This isn’t just an upgrade in rights – it’s a shift in power back to where it belongs: with working people.

But the fight isn’t over. The naysayers and doom-mongers haven’t gone away. They’re the same tired voices who fought against the minimum wage, claiming it would crash the economy. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. Stronger rights at work don’t threaten growth – they drive it, and they make sure it delivers money in workers’ pockets.

This Bill still needs to get through the House of Lords. After it’s been written into law, there’s work to do to get every detail right to make sure it works in practice and delivers the change working people have been promised. And let’s not forget, the Employment Rights Bill is only the start of delivering the New Deal for Working People.

We’ve come this far by standing together. We won’t let them hold us back.

Add your name. Show your support for delivering the New Deal in full.