On CiF today Polly Toynbee urges Labour MP's & ministers to be bold and put their weight behind Andrew Miller's private member's bill to give agency workers the same pay and conditions as everyone else. She levels the common accusation that senior Labour figures are so terrified of continued association with 'old Labour' themes that on some areas they're actually to the right of Cameron. But what is the Tory position on this bill?
All this bill does is insist that temporary or agency workers get the same pay & conditions as permanent workers - it doesn't force anything else on employers and certainly would prevent the hiring of temporary staff. CBI suggestions that this would cost 250,000 jobs have to be nonsense because these are service jobs that need to be done. So why is there such a a resounding silence from bloggers and commentators from the right on this issue? Cameron has spoken passionately about work / life balance and the need to support families and there are few things that speak to this as strongly as supporting temporary workers, many of whom are mothers trying to make a few extra bob. I always struggle with the fact that Conservative commentators never seem to engage with these issues and it explains (and partly justifies) why the Conservatives still attract a 'nasty' tag.
So come on Tory bloggers - let's either get behind Andrew's bill or hear a reasoned argument against paying temporary workers the same as their permanent counterparts (and no obtuse or generalised arguments about state interference or flexibility please). And I'm aware that any lingering respect Tory readers have for me will probably be demolished by this post - I'm already so 'wet' as to risk drowning but hey, I am what I am.
All this bill does is insist that temporary or agency workers get the same pay & conditions as permanent workers - it doesn't force anything else on employers and certainly would prevent the hiring of temporary staff. CBI suggestions that this would cost 250,000 jobs have to be nonsense because these are service jobs that need to be done. So why is there such a a resounding silence from bloggers and commentators from the right on this issue? Cameron has spoken passionately about work / life balance and the need to support families and there are few things that speak to this as strongly as supporting temporary workers, many of whom are mothers trying to make a few extra bob. I always struggle with the fact that Conservative commentators never seem to engage with these issues and it explains (and partly justifies) why the Conservatives still attract a 'nasty' tag.
So come on Tory bloggers - let's either get behind Andrew's bill or hear a reasoned argument against paying temporary workers the same as their permanent counterparts (and no obtuse or generalised arguments about state interference or flexibility please). And I'm aware that any lingering respect Tory readers have for me will probably be demolished by this post - I'm already so 'wet' as to risk drowning but hey, I am what I am.
2 Comments:
The reason you'll have no responses is that argument in the Conservative Party in the last 20-30 years have declined to quibbles over abstract ideology.
The bloggers are far too busy clambering over one another to be "plus Thatcheriste que la reine"; something like this will only excite their attention to enable them to stick their feet in their mouths.
Very depressing.
PS Don't say Tories would have no respect for you; these laissez fairy Whigs wouldn't, but Tories agree wholeheartedly.
the Conservative Party in the last 20-30 years have declined to quibbles over abstract ideology.
Yeah that’s right endless dissecting of Neo Thatcherite post Blairal narrative ....honestly I could swear some comments you see are produced by a random word machine. Its all crunchy with bits where I come from
I do have a fair amount of sympathy for this but its no good saying "No simple arguments " when there is hardly a complex way of saying it will lead to fewer jobs . Of course it will, and less profits and worse economic performance
.In fact it would be protecting our workers at the expense of poor Poles who need the work .In the building industry it would be devastating ( which would have a knock on effect on me ).
Still , I understand the urge for national protectionism but the lefts need is for asymmetrical barriers
If we protect British workers , I will not be subject to EU free provison of services of a most destabilising and harmful kind with no minimum conditions working in the part of the economy that pays for everything . Also no pension and nothing for the 30% public spending increase . Only in the context of leaving the EU and getting off my back can we have this discussion.
We cannot only protect certain types of people from the consequences of globalisation thereby shoring up Labour’s weak flank and further predating on the South and the middling .
NOT WET exactly
I wouldn’t say this was one of your most lefty posts but you are not a wet Conservative . You are more a Blairite managerialist of a sort more or less at home in any Party.Pro free trade and yet wanting the state to guarantee services. You are uninterested in moral questions and relatively uninterested in constitutional questions because pragmatism is your guide and you care more about policies than who voted for them.
IMHO...not evil but a dangerously incomplete vision of the ways of men. You scare me to death :)
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