Dear Constituent,

A very warm welcome to this week's Denton and Reddish Weekly News. 

This week saw A-Level, GCSE, T Level and BTEC students receiving results across Denton and Reddish. We had some fantastic results so a massive well done to students, staff, parents and guardians who managed to get through such a tough academic year.

Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, is supporting Labour MP Barry Gardiner’s Private Member’s Bill to outlaw fire and rehire.

Fire and rehire is a practise in which employers dismiss or threaten to fire staff, in order to force them to sign up to new contracts with worse pay and conditions. Over the course of the pandemic there were a number of high profile disputes over fire and rehire, with massive companies including Tesco, Sainsburys and British Gas all facing controversy for use of the tactics.

A report published by the Trades Union Congress in January 2021 estimated that 9% of workers had been told to re-apply for jobs on worse terms since March 2020, with higher rates among young and BME workers.

Barry Gardiner’s Bill has so far been supported by over 100 MPs from across party lines, 20 trade unions, the Institute of Employment Rights, and the TUC.

A Private Member’s Bill is a mechanism by which individual MPs can initiate their own legislation without Government support. To put forward a Private Member’s Bill an MP has to be successful in a randomly allocated ballot at the start of the parliamentary term.

Andrew Gwynne said:

“Fire and rehire is an absolutely disgraceful business practise that forces workers into accepting poor pay and employment conditions. It cannot be allowed to continue.

That’s why I’m pleased to be supporting this Bill introduced by my colleague Barry Gardiner. We must introduce robust legislation so that workers are properly protected against this dreadful practise.

I hope to see more MPs from across the house supporting this legislation. All parliamentarians need to work together to support workers and put a stop to fire and rehire once and for all.”

To find out more about fire and rehire and the campaign to stop it, click here.

Friends of the Tame Valley secure additional funding 🌱

We received some incredible news last week that Friends of the Tame Valley has been granted £3000 in funding from the Greater Manchester High Sheriff's Police Fund. This additional funding will go towards much-needed footpath restoration on Jet Amber Fields, and some sign post repairs.

FoTV was only founded in February of this year, and has since gone from strength to strength. We've received donations from groups including Action Together, Bradley Park Community Trust and the Duchy of Lancaster. With this latest donation the group will have raised over £12,000, which has gone straight into transforming and protecting the Tame Valley.

I'm so proud to be a part of this group and the incredible work that it does. Well done to everyone involved with FoTV and a massive thank you to the Greater Manchester High Sheriff's Police Fund!

The next FoTV event is taking place on August the 22nd at 10:30am. We'll be meeting at Bailey Bridge, Jet Amber Fields and will be doing some more Balsam Bashing. Balsam Bashing is great for the local environment and fun for all the family, so do join us if you can!

Parliament is currently in recess and will return on the 6th of September. 🗓️

                       

 READ: In this week's Tameside Reporter I have written about the incredible results achieved by students across Tameside, the difficulty they have faced over the last year, and why they should be so proud of the hard work they've put in. To read the full article click here.