Last month, the King’s Speech outlined the new Labour Government’s legislative agenda in what is described as “the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”. Labour reiterated its promise to introduce its Employment Rights Bill within its first one hundred days in power. The agenda also includes the introduction of the Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill.
Employment Rights Bill
The King stated that the Government “is committed to making work pay and will legislate to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights.”
The Labour Government has reiterated its commitment deliver the following:
- Ban exploitative zero-hours contracts and ensure that everyone has the right to a contract reflecting the hours they regularly work, based on a 12-week reference period.
- End "fire and rehire" and "fire and replace" practices, which involve dismissing employees and rehiring them on less favourable terms. This includes reforming the law to provide effective remedies against abuse and introducing a strengthened statutory code of practice.
- Make parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal a day-one rights for all workers. This initiative aims to strengthen family-friendly rights and extend workplace protections, ensuring all workers have the same basic rights, including holiday pay and parental leave, by removing the two-year continuous service requirement for ordinary unfair dismissal claims.
- Remove the lower earnings limit and waiting period for Statutory Sick Pay.
- Make flexible working the default from day one for all workers, requiring employers to accommodate this wherever reasonable.
- Strengthen protections for new mothers, making it unlawful to dismiss women within six months of returning to work after having a baby, except in exceptional circumstances.
- Establish a Fair Work Agency to enhance the enforcement of workplace rights.
- Update trade union legislation by removing restrictions on trade union activity and simplifying the statutory recognition process. This also includes strengthening the collective voice of workers by enhancing unions' rights of access to the workplace and imposing a duty on employers to inform staff of their right to join a union.
These changes aim to extend workplace rights and protections, ensuring that all workers share the same basic rights. They represent a significant departure from current employment practices.
Employers will feel the most substantial impact from the introduction of first day of employment flexible working rights and unfair dismissal protection, as well as the extension of that protection.
Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
The Government plans to address inequality for ethnic minorities and disabled people by introducing a statutory right to equal pay for both protected groups. Additionally, the Government intends to mandate ethnicity and disability pay reporting for large employers with more than 250 employees.
However, it may be some time before we see these measures become law, as the government will need to consider several issues such as confidentiality, complexities in obtaining the correct data and the significant burden on businesses. Therefore, further consultation may be required before these proposals are put before Parliament.
Next steps
Employers will need to carefully consider their recruitment procedures and re-assess their management strategies to effectively implement these vast changes in their business.
Transitional arrangements will be necessary to give employers time to prepare for the new employment landscape, which Labour will need to set out further. However, employers should stay informed and prepared for these anticipated changes.
For help and advice on this topic or related issues, please get in touch with the Employment team by emailing employmentteam@salaw.com.
