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The Tories’ “much-touted growth in employment” has been brought about by greater workplace insecurity, CWU general secretary Billy Hayes warned yesterday.
He told delegates to the union’s annual conference in Bournemouth that “fear is no basis for a healthy and sustained recovery.”
Mr Hayes said the massive rise in zero-hours contracts gave bosses a huge amount of power to give or refuse work on the basis of employees’ obedience.
“No one knows how many zero-hour contracts there are. It appears to be more than a million, forming the basis for a large part of the new jobs created.”
Mr Hayes said the insecure nature of “the recovery” was further evidenced in growth of self-employment, highlighting official statistics that showed 44 per cent of new jobs created since 2010 are defined as self-employed.
And he warned that much of the so-called economic recovery is based on personal debt and the housing bubble in London and south-east England.
Mr Hayes also warned that the union would not forget how the coalition government flogged off the Royal Mail at bargain basement prices.
He warned Business Secretary Vince Cable: “We won’t forget you Cablefroth, we’ll be coming back for you,” he threatened.
Since the sell-off the CWU now largely operated in the private sector where union organisation is harder, he said, insisting: “But the union is up for the challenge.”
He added: “We make a difference … union members earn on average £116 more a week than non-union members.”