PDA welcomes government's move to backtrack restricting workers' rights

The Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA) has welcomed the Westminster government's move to backtracked from their plan to remove a large number of rights and standards and is having to overhaul the Retained EU Law Bill.

This had included a number of employment rights, including TUPE transfers and the Working Time Directive, which had been established in the UK from EU law.

The Bill’s ‘sunset clause’ was originally going to automatically repeal any EU law not enshrined in UK law by the end of 2023. Critics of the Bill were concerned that this gave the government powers to reform or remove laws without normal Parliamentary scrutiny.

"This would have abolished many improvements to workers’ rights which were enacted through the EU legislature," said PDA.

PDA Director, Paul Day said, “Part of the role of the PDA is to be the trade union for pharmacists. Trade unions lead the campaigns to secure laws relating to rights at work and trade unions will now fight to retain them. Though we have won this battle, holiday pay, parental rights and health and safety protections remain vulnerable.

"If a government aims to reduce the rights at work of pharmacists, and others, then we will need to keep fighting those proposals.”

The Working Time Directive is now going to be retained and no major employment rights will be removed at this time.

"However, the government has still stated its intention to reduce record-keeping for working time purposes. The government has also stated its intention to introduce ‘rolled up’ holiday pay and merge two separate leave entitlements into one pot of statutory leave," said PDA.