Contractors and the Labour movement have historically not had the best of relationships; indeed, it has been difficult to engage with a Labour party that tried to criminalise what you do for a living by introducing IR35.
However, a recent report by the Labour-movement-affiliated Fabian Society suggests that left-wing attitudes to flexible working may be softening, with glimmers of understanding emerging. Have we arrived at a watershed and has the Labour movement finally ‘got’ contracting?
Actually, you wouldn’t think that from the first contribution. New Forms of Work starts out with a somewhat questionable analysis of how the UK workforce reached its current state – questionable in terms of the evidence presented and conclusions drawn. It then calls on The Labour Party “to make the case for a rapid return to sustainable full-employment”.
But the contributors go on to warm to contracting. The evidence from the experience of freelancers in the USA, and more specifically how they have organised themselves, is used to show how unions must evolve to represent these new kinds of workers or face obscurity.
Unions have enjoyed an uneasy relationship with contractors because contractors are difficult to control and offer limited membership potential to traditional labour unions. But that seems to be changing, and the fundamental role of the labour union is being examined.
In fact, some unions are in the process of making the transition from a purely labour union to a quasi-trade and professional institute, providing as much business support as they do workplace mediation. This is possibly a model that might empower contractors without them losing any of the flexibility and entrepreneurialism they typically demonstrate.
We are then invited to “move away from debates that depressingly focus on IR35” and create a policy agenda that does not consign contractors to being “failed employees”, but instead highlights that they are not employees or businesses in the traditional sense and need their own place on the policy agenda.
The report proposes that a level playing field is what’s needed across tax and employment legislation. It also notes that contractors and freelancers need to be given proper definitions and recognition that they “play a pivotal, yet largely unheralded role in the modern British entrepreneurial economy”.
We’re being asked to “recognise that whilst many do, it’s no longer every worker that wants a full-time, permanent job: the labour market has moved on, and so must we,” says the report.
These messages to the Labour movement from many of its supporters writing in a Labour Party-affiliated organisation’s report are encouraging. Does this signal a new age of recognition, in which contractors can count on the support of a future Labour government?
So far, based on the fact that there has been no great stampede by Labour politicians to rewrite the policy agenda, the answer appears to be ‘no’ But it might just be the case that Labour has now ‘got’ contracting and future manifestos and policy agendas may feature more contractor-friendly content.