Face of Nation : Three low paid workers and their union are launching a legal challenge to make the prime minister seek an extension to the Brexit deadline.
The government has promised EU-law derived employment rights will remain in UK law after Brexit. But if there were a no-deal Brexit, the union says, ministers would have free rein to water down these rights. And workers could no longer rely on the supremacy of EU law, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights or Court of Justice.
The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represents some 5,000 workers, 1,000 of whom are EU citizens, is currently relying upon these aspects of EU law in a number of worker’s rights court cases.
Key workers’ rights based on EU law include: minimum paid holiday , working hours regulation , equal pay , protection against discrimination , consultation on redundancy plans. There are an estimated 3.5 million citizens of other EU member states living and working in the UK. One of them, Maritza Castillo Calle, who has a Spanish passport and works in catering and part-time for the IWGB, is a claimant in the case.
IWGB general secretary Jason Moyer-Lee told : “Low paid workers, like couriers and cleaners, need all the protections and employment rights they can get.
“Many of these come from EU law and are at serious risk in a no-deal Brexit. “The IWGB will do everything possible to protect these rights, including legal action to force the prime minister to obey the law and request an extension to the Brexit deadline.”
The IWGB challenge joins a similar one in the English and Welsh courts brought by the rights group Liberty and one in the Scottish courts brought by businessman Dale Vince, Jolyon Maugham QC and SNP MP Joanna Cherry. The Scottish case was dismissed by the judge on Monday but the petitioners have announced their intention to appeal.
On Friday, government papers submitted in the Scottish case stated the prime minister would send a letter to the EU asking for a Brexit delay if no deal was agreed by 19 October. Similar assurances, to obey the Benn act and not seek to frustrate it, have been given by the government to the IWGB in pre-action correspondence seen by BBC News.
However, a senior Downing Street source has said: “The government will comply with the Benn act, which only imposes a very specific narrow duty concerning Parliament’s letter requesting a delay, drafted by an unknown subset of MPs and pro-EU campaigners, and which can be interpreted in different ways.
“But the government is not prevented by the act from doing other things that cause no delay, including other communications, private and public.
“People will have to wait to see how this is reconciled. “The government is making its true position on delay known privately in Europe and this will become public soon.” This has led to increased speculation Downing Street has seen a way around the Benn act.
