UNIONS condemned Tory MPs today for sabotaging proposed legislation to control employers’ fire-and-rehire tactics to cut workers’ wages and worsen working conditions.

The MPs cynically “talked out” a Private Member’s Bill which would have protected an estimated three million workers from the practice.

The sabotage in the Commons was described as “an act of cowardice” by Brent North Labour MP Barry Gardiner, who had staged a nationwide campaign in support of his Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill.

It made a mockery of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s statement in the Commons that he believed fire and rehire is “unacceptable.”

Almost 10 per cent of Britain’s workforce now face being sacked and rehired on inferior contracts, according to the TUC.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “The government has chosen to side with bad bosses by failing to take action to tackle fire and rehire today.

“This appalling practice gives unscrupulous employers free rein to threaten to sack workers in secure jobs if they don’t accept a new contract on worse pay or conditions.

“It’s a national scandal.”

Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis said: “The use of fire-and-rehire tactics to enforce contractual changes by sacking and then re-engaging workers is morally bankrupt.

“The Prime Minister has called it ‘unacceptable,’ but those words are meaningless without action.

“Today they had the chance to right that wrong, but chose to block an opportunity to protect workers.”

GMB national secretary Andy Prendergast said: “The Conservatives like to talk a lot about working people. But every time there’s a chance to help them, they go missing.

“Today’s Bill offered fairly modest protections against fire and rehire, a tactic which politicians of all stripes agree is abhorrent.

“Yet even that was too much for them. Once again with the Prime Minister, a lot of big talk was followed by zero action.”

Introducing the Bill in commons, Mr Gardiner said fire and rehire “shouldn’t be happening in Britain today,” adding that 9 per cent of British workers have experienced threat of the practice.

He cited testimony from employees facing fire and rehire and added it was not “simply a social problem or an issue of morality,” but also an economic one which caused “enormous loss of production.”