Labour Party Work Manifesto - A Better Plan For Britain’s Workplaces

2 Apr 2015

Labour’s plan is based on a simple idea: that Britain only succeeds when working people succeed. The key tests of economic success aren’t statistics. They are the living standards, the security, and the hope for the future of working families. Fundamentally that is about a well-paid and rewarding world of work. For too many people in Britain, working life is characterised by insecurity. This is making it harder for families to make ends meet or balance their work commitments with family life. And it is limiting the ability of young people who struggle to find a decent job that sets them up for a career.

This does not work for the families concerned, and it does not work for Britain. We will never succeed with a race to the bottom on wages and skills. But we cannot simply go back to the old institutions of the past, which are not right for today’s world either. The central goal for a Labour Government will be to build an economy that creates the secure and better paid jobs we need to raise living standards, ensuring that working people share in the nation’s wealth. The better plan for Britain’s workplaces set out in this manifesto will build a bedrock of security for working families, and a new settlement to create a higher skill, higher wage economy. It is a plan for economic reform that is not less ambitious because we live in a time of scarcity, but more ambitious because it sets a new direction for Britain.