The Green Party will seek to outflank Labour from the left on employment rights on Friday with a promise to lift the minimum wage to 15 and end Margaret Thatcher’s ban on “secondary picketing”.

The Greens’ “Workers Charter 2026” is an attempt to persuade workers that the party, now in joint second place in opinion polls, would go even further in improving workers’ rights than Sir Keir Starmer’s government.

It is also an attempt to court trade unions that might disaffiliate from Labour in order to be free to donate to multiple leftwing parties. Unite, one of the largest unions, last month voted to cut its Labour affiliation payments by 580,000 in protest against the ruling party.

Green leader Zack Polanski will on Friday say that Starmer’s Employment Rights Act — which includes more generous sick pay, greater parental leave and a ban on “exploitative” zero-hours contracts — does not go far enough and has been watered down following pressure from business.

Party officials said Polanski would promise a rise in the minimum wage to 15 by April 2027 “for all workers regardless of age”, requiring an 18 per cent increase from its current adult level of 12.71. The policy would mark a 38 per cent rise for 18 to 20-year-olds, now on 10.85.

Polanski, who became leader last summer, would also vow to “scrap all anti-union and anti-strike laws introduced since 1979” and cap executive pay at 10 times the rate of the lowest-paid worker in a company, they added.

The move on industrial...

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