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Fighting Tory plans for a bonfire of workers’ rights
The Thatcherites in the Cabinet present a real threat to workers’ rights, which our whole labour movement must unite to fight, argues RICHARD BURGON MP

A FEW years ago a number of free-market extremists published a book claiming British workers “prefer a lie-in to hard work,” slandering them as “among the worst idlers in the world” who “work among the lowest hours.”

One of the authors of that book is now the foreign secretary. Another the home secretary. Another the trade secretary. Another author of that book is the new business secretary, who has established a new 30-strong panel of business leaders to discuss changes to workers’ rights including getting rid of break and holiday pay entitlements and ending the already limited maximum working hours protections of the Working Time Directive. 

It says everything you need to know that this consultation is being done solely with business leaders. 

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