Just an opinion but leaving the EU will be a backward step for workers rights. Certainly can't see a UKIP/Conservative alliance keeping them. Indeed such luminaries are the institute of directors have already said
Alexander Ehmann, IoD head of government and Parliamentary affairs, says: “Priorities for abolition include the Agency Workers Directive and the Information and Consultation of Employees Directive. The IoD would also argue for substantive simplification of the Working Time Directive and discrimination laws.”
Other directives that the IoD is examining before deciding on how, if at all, it would like them amended include the Transfer of Undertaking or Acquired Rights Directive, Collective Redundancies Directive and various directives related to equal rights.
Ehmann adds that IoD members also have concerns about domestic employment laws such as those related to unfair dismissal, parental leave and the default retirement age: “From the EU, priorities are discrimination law, record-keeping requirements regarding working time and rules around equal pay of agency workers.”
Not forgetting the The Federation of Small Businesses who
in a recent submission to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry, listed 10 pieces of EU-derived legislation that its members find the most burdensome. These included the Working Time Directive, “one of the most expensive EU regulations to be introduced in the UK that has created huge administrative and compliance costs for small businesses”.Regulations on self-employed drivers’ working time and temporary agency workers also made the FSB’s top 10.
One employment Lawyer warned:
“Even if the UK left the EU, several entrenched and perceived ‘rights’ that have come from Europe would still be expected by UK employees,” Clarke says. “Many have been transposed into employment contracts and policies of organisations.”
Some of these rights include:
maternity entitlement;
discrimination protection;
holiday entitlement;
agency workers’ rights; and
data protection principles.
