After much speculation following its election, the Labour Government’s plans for Making Work Pay have been published today (October 10th 2024) as part of its draft Employment Rights Bill. If you have any interest in employment rights or you’re a manager yourself - you can’t have missed reports in the news.
The declared intention is to support productivity and the growth of the economy by enabling more people to join, and stay in, the world of work. Changes will not happen overnight though, as it will take time for new legislation to be written and passed, and for necessary consultation processes to be completed - indeed, it is likely to take 1-2 years before we see anything implemented. Now is the time, though, to begin to think about what the planned changes might mean for your organisation.
Here’s what we now know for certain about some of the key areas covered by the Employment Rights Bill which includes 28 individual employment reforms. These are summarised below:
- The right to protection from unfair dismissal will be a day one right, instead of needing a minimum of 2 years of continuous service.
- Ending exploitative zero-hours contracts - e.g. where there is one-sided flexibility on the part of the worker - giving workers the right to a guaranteed hours contract (and therefore more stable earnings) if they work regular hours over a defined period, reasonable notice of shifts and compensation payments for shift cancellation/movement and curtailment at short notice (with limited exceptions which are yet to be set out). It has been made clear that individuals will be allowed to remain on a zero-hours contract where they prefer to work on a casual, ad hoc basis.
- Banning exploitative fire and rehire practices - e.g. as a way of imposing poorer contractual terms and conditions.
- Day one rights for paternity, parental and bereavement leave - meaning that many more workers will now be eligible to take time off for these reasons instead of, for example, needing to have a minimum of 26 weeks continuous service with their employer (in the case of paternity leave) or 1 year (in the case of parental leave).
- Enhancing statutory sick pay entitlements (currently £116.75 per week) so that the 3-day waiting period and lower earnings threshold will be removed, meaning that workers will become entitled to sick pay from the start of periods of sickness absence when this is not currently the case.
- Flexible working will be made the default unless employers can prove that it isn’t practical or reasonable.
- Larger employers (with more than 250 staff) will be required to report on their plans for addressing gender pay gaps and supporting through menopause
- There will be enhanced protection against dismissal for pregnant women and new mothers (building on the changes that were introduced this year to extend protection from notification of pregnancy to 18 months following the birth or adoption of a child) - this will provide protection for a period following the return from maternity leave (and will be extended to cover adoption and shared parental leave as well as neonatal care leave when this comes into effect)
- A new Fair Work Agency will be formed to enforce employment rights and support employers with guidance on how to comply with the law (e.g. in regard to the implementation of holiday pay and statutory sick pay).
- Legislation that was introduced in 2023 to require trade unions to comply with minimum service levels in key sectors, such as health, transport and education, will be repealed. As well as this, the Bill will give trade unions greater freedom to gain recognition with employers, to organise, represent and negotiate on behalf of their members and to formally request access to workplaces for meetings with members.
- Removing age bands from the Minimum Wage and ensuring that the cost of living is reflected when setting future levels.
- Further strengthening the new proactive duty for employers (which will be coming into effect on 26 October 2024) to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment
Initiating a range of consultations with employers and worker representatives as part of its Next Steps in respect of the following proposals:
- for the right of staff to switch off on their own time so that they cannot be contacted out of hours by their employer (unless there are exceptional circumstances)
- to make it mandatory for large employers to report on ethnicity and disability pay gaps
- to create a single status of worker (removing the need for a distinction in the rights that currently exist between employees, workers and the self-employed)
- to review arrangements for the various forms of parental leave and carers leave
- to introduce a statutory probationary period
