LABOUR is plotting to give trade union reps fully paid time off to campaign on issues like trans rights if they are elected.
Taxpayers will be left to pick up the bill in most workplaces – like schools, hospitals and council offices.
Conservative MP for Peterborough Paul Bristow, above, has railed against Labour’s plan to give trade union reps fully-paid time off to campaign on social issues
Labour party bosses are meeting next weekend to thrash out their policies for the next election, which they are expected to win.
Among the plans being discussed is for a new law to give “statutory rights for trade union equality reps”.
This will give equality reps the legal right to spend working hours on trade union activism and still get paid.
It will only apply to workplaces that recognise trade unions – which are overwhelmingly in the cash-strapped public sector.
Tory MP Paul Bristow railed against the plan.
He fumed: “The mask slips again on what a Labour Government would do.
“I don’t think hard working families would want their tax spend on funding trade union reps campaigning on trans rights.
“They should be doing the job they were hired to do.”
Labour Party sources did not deny that the plan – a key demand by their union paymasters – is being looked at.
But a source said the policy is “about protecting people from harassment at work and supporting new mums”.
They said equality reps mainly deal with issues around maternity and disability rights.
Unite – one of Britain’s biggest trade unions – has a handbook which details the roles of quality reps.
It states that equality reps should “tackle homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and harassment”.
