Workers’ rights protected in EU law would be torn up under plans being drawn up by Brexiteer Tories.
Boris Johnson’s Business Department plans to dump rules governing the 48-hour week and rest breaks at work.
According to a leak to the Financial Times newspaper Ministers are drawing up proposals that could mean longer working weeks and not including overtime pay when calculating some holiday pay entitlements.
The post-Brexit plan comes despite numerous pledges by Boris Johnson that quitting the EU would not undermine rules protecting working hours.
Labour’s Ed Miliband said the party would fight “tooth and nail” against the plans. Trade unions reacted with fury and the SNP said independence is the only way to protect workers’ rights in Scotland.
Miliband, the Shadow Business Secretary, said: “Conservative Ministers promised time and again they will not row back on workers’ rights but their mask has slipped.”
Newly appointed Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng insisted the government is not planning to “lower” workers’ rights
“We want to protect and enhance workers’ rights going forward, not row back on them.”
The Department for Business said labour market policy was kept under “regular review” to ensure businesses had the “appropriate freedoms and flexibility to innovate and grow”.
But Miliband said that “crucially there has been no real denial that the specific proposals reported are on the table.”
The former Labour leader added: “These proposals to rip up workers’ rights should not even be up for discussion, and Labour will fight tooth and nail against them if Ministers pursue this course of action.”
SNP Shadow Business Secretary Drew Hendry MP said: “Millions of workers depend on the protections that are enshrined in EU law. Westminster cannot be trusted to protect and advance them
“It is clear that the only way to properly protect workers’ rights in Scotland is to become an independent country with full powers over employment law, equality law, and the ability to protect Scotland’s place in Europe.”
