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- [00:00]
A
So we're being joined in the second half by repeat guest. I think he's been on like four times. Four, Pete.
- [00:06]
B
Four or five times, yeah.
- [00:08]
A
Emiliano Molino from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Emiliano, thank you for being with us today.
- [00:12]
B
Oh, thanks for having me.
- [00:14]
A
So last time we had you on, we were talking about how toothless employment tribunals are in this country, where frequently, if you will, if, let's say, you work in a restaurant and your boss steals your tips, you can make a complaint and get a judgment against them from an employment tribunal that you then will be totally unable to enforce. And they know that, and everyone knows that, and it's like a sort of pantomime of workers rights. Now, we've noted that as part of the review of workers rights, the labor government is planning to launch the Fair Work Agency, among a bunch of other transformations, try and counteract some of these tendencies. And given that, you know, what show you're listening to and who you're talking to, you know that we're not about to say. And it fixed the problems and it's great. And anyway, Emiliano, thanks for coming on. Where can people find you?
- [01:02]
B
Yeah, it's. I mean, it's all been fixed now. The biggest problem is obviously the burden on business. This is going to destroy British business. Regulation is terrible and something's got to be done about this. But, no, in all seriousness, I think it's important when we talk about this stuff, this, this regulation stuff and the enforcement of employment rights and the new changes brought in by the government. We kind of need to start from, from where we were, right? Where we were before this Employment Rights act, because the Employment Rights act came in and the government said, you know, it's the biggest uplift in a generation for employment rights. You know, the right wing paper said it's going to destroy business. And, you know, neither of them are telling the full story, really. Right. And the problem is, like we've talked about before, you know, in the uk, there aren't really that many journalists specialized employment rights, or they even care about employment rights. So there's very few people actually analyzing what's really going on with the Employment Rights Act. Now, there's some very good stuff in it, right? They've reduced the qualifying period for unfair dismissal, for example, from two years to six months. They've made it easier to strike and things like that. But if we actually analyze a bit more in depth, we see some of the gaps. Right.
- [02:09]
A
In so many cases, I think it's worth saying, just to interrupt that so often you're told, especially by your average abundance liberal, that, oh, this is better, this is more, and so on and so on, you're never, in absolute terms, you're never asked, well, what could it be? You're never asked, is it enough? So with that in mind, please carry on.
- [02:28]
B
And that's exactly it. And I think there's like two things to bear in mind. One is what you're saying, right, like this Employment Rights act has had like a really long journey to get to where it is. You know, it started when labor was in opposition, when Laura Pidcock was Secretary of State for Employment Rights. And then it was called the New Deal for Workers. And over the space of years, and as ministers changed, it got increasingly, increasingly watered down. It's nowhere near what it was when these proposals were first being made. Right. And so, for example, like, major things have been removed, like, for example, protections for gig economy work. One of the big things in the original New Deal for workers was single status of worker, which would give loads of, you know, it would give gig economy workers the same rights as any other employee right that was removed. And, and so it's not nowhere near to what it could have been. You know, right now there's a lot of unions and organizations like Strike Map, which are calling for, you know, an Employment Rights act number two, to basically do all the things that weren't done in this Employment Rights act, you know, all the things that were removed when it was watered. The second thing, which no one's really talking about, is that before the Employment Rights act was brought in, the UK was really at the bottom of employment protections among European countries. It was the bottom employment protections for most countries in the oecd, which, like the club of like, let's say Western economies, for lack of a better word. Right, which is like a lot of European countries, but also like the US and Colombia and Korea and places like that. Not North Korea. To be clear, North Korea is not
- [03:49]
A
in the oecd and South Korea is like, famously has a very like predatory economy, was my understanding.
- [03:56]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it was at the bottom of that ranking. I'm not sure exactly where. I mean, I'm not saying that the UK was like all the way at the bottom, but it's amongst the worst, right? Definitely worse than like Colombia or, or Chile or places like that. Right, of course. So what the Rights act did, and there's just like research that the, that the government self commissioned and it found that the Employment Rights act, what effect it was doing was like the UK went from like the bottom of employment protections to way below average when it comes to employment protections. Right. And so it doesn't really, you know, it doesn't. Yes, it's an improvement, but it gets near to where other countries are, you know, equivalent countries are.
- [04:30]
A
It's like if you're drowning in a very deep pool and you're raised up to much closer to the surface of the water, but still under it.
- [04:38]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. We're still drowning. Right. When it comes to underemployment protections. So like. Yeah, so that's, that's sort of where we are. And no one's really talking about that. No one's really talking about also, because I think there's like a lack of curiosity in the UK in general about what's happening outside or how the UAK compares to other countries. But yeah, definitely, when it comes to employment rights, we compare very poorly. When it comes to strike rights, we compare very poorly still. The UK will be one of the hardest countries in Europe to go on strike, one of the countries with the biggest strike restrictions. Right.
- [05:07]
A
Yeah.
- [05:07]
B
So that's basically where we are now. Right. And so this is the context that we're coming in. And similarly, when it comes to like this Fair Work Agency, which is like the new enforcement body.
- [05:17]
A
Yeah, I'm interested to hear about the Fair Work Agency because. Specifically because. And I actually want to sort of jump around my notes a little bit today. Yeah. Because I think the question I want to ask is the test that we're going to put the Fair Work Agency through in our conversation is will it stop this asshole, which is specifically the owner of Antebedia, which is following in like the Granger Co. Trend of like a sort of chill Australian avocado place to go and spend what would otherwise be your housing deposit. And, you know, this is a guy I believe, Jason Wells.
- [05:49]
B
Jason Wells, yeah.
- [05:50]
A
Jason Wells moved from London to Melbourne, founded a cafe chain and then it started Antipodea, this like sort of higher end dining solution. And you know, you spoke to several of his staff and analyzed hundreds of pages of tribunal and company insolvency documents where it shows repeatedly that he will, if someone like leaves, he will not pay their back wages, he won't pay out their, their holiday pay, their overtime pay won't pay out. Like, he will not pay out lots of stuff. And then he'll say, go to an employment tribunal, I won't pay it anyway. Fuck you. And then they do like, you have like story after story in your article of people going to an employment tribunal, getting a judgment. And then there's one person who was actually able to follow this process all the way because I believe she came from a more middle class family and had like a family who was going to be like, no, we're going to get you your fucking money. We're going to jump through all of the hoops that someone who's maybe working two other jobs or someone who's like, working on like an immigration status claim or whatever wouldn't have the spare bandwidth to jump through. They wouldn't have the money to jump through. They're like, no, we're going to jump through every single fucking one. And then when they finally got an enforceable court order against his company, it turns out that the company that they were working for has no assets. And just like, it pays all of its money and, like, rent to other holding companies, like a private equity organization, but in miniature to stop this from happening. And he'd be like, yeah, deal with it. I'm phoenixing a bunch of companies to fuck with you because I hate you. Right. The question is, would the Fair Working Agency be able to stop this asshole?
- [07:23]
B
Okay, so it's hard to say.
- [07:26]
A
Cool. Good. I love. I love Starmerism. It's my favorite political ideology in all of history, which is. You have a clear test. It's just like the fucking workers rights thing. It's like, hey, what we've done is we've gone from the bottom of the table to simply losing. But, like, you know, it's in F1. We're not in the fucking points. We're at like, we're 12th as opposed to 19th.
- [07:48]
B
Yeah, I think we're worse than 12th, actually. Sorry, sorry, sorry to. Sorry to.
- [07:54]
A
Yeah, we're like Alpine.
- [07:55]
B
Yeah.
- [07:55]
A
You know, and we're sort of. We went from 18th to like 15th. Cool. And then you're supposed to. And that's what. That's all we can do. And it's like, okay, well, you've delivered a bunch of reforms that will develop no constituency for themselves. These are not confrontational on your behalf. They might improve some things for some people, but they don't make people love them because you can't tell that they're doing anything for you because they're not really doing much. It's the same thing with this. Is it going to be able to stop this guy who's like, I will take advantage of a system rigged in my favor by being like. And we'll have the power to prosecute we'll have the power to. We will have the power to. Like that British courts have, by the way, which agencies don't tend to have as much British courts have it to say, hey, you are clearly using a complex corporate structure to avoid paying things like employment tribunal settlements. We're going to ignore it and pretend it's all one company, which British courts have the power to do and routinely do.
- [08:48]
B
Yeah, but tribunals don't. And that's one of the problems, Right? So I mean, like, okay, so the reason I say it's hard to say, it's like, let me break it down. So specifically the case of this guy, right? The way he structured the company, like you, I think you said very clearly. I mean, a few people tried to enforce the awards, just like this one family in particular really went all the way. Like, the dad ended up picketing the restaurants until Jason Wells called the cops on the guy that was picketing, even though it was Jason was breaking the law. I mean, it's quite, quite crazy. And. But yeah, what Jason Wells did was that he had like this string of companies. And so he employed all the workers through a company called STR48. STR48 had no assets. And then the assets of the company and the leases were owned by str 49, str 50. And the problem is that when you bring an employment tribunal claim, you bring it against the company, not against the person or against the corporate structure. Right? So you bring a claim against STR48, and when you send bailiffs to enforce, they get there and you realize str48 has no assets. And so there's nothing to repossess and there's nothing that you can enforce against. There's not. There's no money you can recover. Right. And at that point, you know, it's not like the Tribune can say, okay, then go to str49. No, it doesn't have that power. And part of the reason, I mean, this comes down to like the, I mean, I don't want to go too deep, but like, comes out to basic tenets of like sort of limited liability and capitalism. Right? Capitalism was pretty much created on, on the risk that you can take as a limited liability company because your liability is being limited. Right. You can't go against the director. And none of the changes that labor is introducing would allow you to go against the director or the shareholder. And I think that's kind of like in this issue of these especially small and medium businesses that either Phoenix or have these complex structures, nothing of what's being introduced. And none of the powers that the Fair Work Agency has would allow you to go after the director or to go after another company in the business.