Jeremy Corbyn warns that a vote for Boris Johnson’s Tories will strip workers of their tea breaks and bank holidays and force them on to zero-hours contracts.
The Labour leader spoke exclusively to the Sunday Mirror as he began local campaigning. He said: “Labour stands shoulder to shoulder with ASDA workers facing the sack for refusing to sign punishing new contracts.
“We’re going after the bad bosses because we know whose side we’re on. We’re on the side of workers.
“ Boris Johnson ’s Conservatives are on the side of bad bosses like ASDA who cut holiday days, end flexibility for workers and make other cuts to terms and conditions.
Labour will put wealth and power in the hands of the many in our country, not the elite few.” Union bosses claim that 12,000 Asda staff face the sack after refusing to sign new contracts.
Mr Corbyn warned that if the Tories get back in workers would increasingly suffer under contracts like those imposed by the US-owned chain, run by parent company Walmart.
His comments come after Asda announced a seven-day extension on Friday to the deadline for staff to sign the contracts.
But the firm, which does not use zero-hours contracts and does pay the national living wage, said anyone returning today would be doing so under its new arrangements.
The GMB say thousands of Asda’s 12,000 hourly-paid staff have been forced into signing the new contracts, which increase flexibility and could mean short-notice changes.
Gary Carter, GMB’s national officer, said: “This 11th-hour delay kicks the can down the road for Asda workers who are unable to sign this punishing new contract. They now face the prospect of the sack.”
Asda did not comment.
The party has also attacked US-owned Amazon for exploiting its workers in giant warehouses.
Labour has pledged to ban zero-hours contracts and introduce a £10 minimum wage for all staff.
Mr Corbyn said: “Labour will put wealth and power in the hands of the many in our country, not the elite few.”
At a campaign rally in Swindon, Wilts, Mr Corbyn also said a vote for Boris Johnson’s Tories would accelerate an NHS sell-off through closer ties with Donald Trump ’s US regime.
The leader said: “Since he became Prime Minister, there’s already been at least six very high-level meetings between British officials and pharmaceutical companies in the USA. Why would they be meeting? What would they be discussing?
“And when Trump and the US ambassador and others have said repeatedly that any trade deal with Britain would require their access to the British healthcare market, as they call it, I’m deeply, deeply suspicious.”
At a second rally yesterday, Mr Corbyn told a crowd in Bristol: “A million people waiting for social care, in our NHS 34,000 nurse jobs waiting to be filled, and doctors under incredible levels of strain and the longest waiting time for operations in the history of the NHS.
“None of that is necessary. All of that is a product of the austerity brought in in 2010.”
