Employment: Rights and obligations – what is Labour planning?

Following the King’s speech on 17 July, the Labour authorities offered extra element on its plans to vary employment legislation rights and obligations. The principle focuses are an Employment Rights Invoice and a Draft Equality (Race and Incapacity) Invoice. Whereas we look ahead to the element of draft laws laid earlier than parliament, this text affords some temporary feedback on the headline points. 

Employment Rights Invoice (ERB)

Labour’s manifesto made clear that it could introduce wide-ranging laws inside 100 days of being elected. The explanatory notes that accompanied the ERB verify the brand new authorities proposes the next insurance policies throughout the UK:

Creation of a brand new single enforcement physique to strengthen the enforcement of office rights. The dearth of enough enforcement is broadly acknowledged as a barrier to entry to justice. For instance, the Taylor assessment reported as a lot again in July 2017. Employment tribunal claims typically nonetheless take years earlier than a ultimate listening to and a excessive proportion of profitable awards go unpaid.  
Banning exploitative zero-hours contracts (ZHCs). Many practitioners will view this with specific curiosity, given the elevated utilization of such employment contracts in recent times. The associated subject of ‘employment standing’ can even inevitably want consideration due to disputes over whether or not these employed beneath ZHCs are employees, staff or genuinely self-employed.
Ending the apply of ‘hearth and rehire’.  That is one other coverage that can face scrutiny as a result of present prevalence of dismissal and re-engagement by companies searching for to pressure reorganisation in an effort to survive. A serious concern pertains to unintended redundancies from laws that’s too blunt. Nevertheless, few can argue towards the necessity for laws to forestall hearth and rehire getting used as a knee-jerk response, moderately than as a final resort, by a struggling enterprise.
Amending parental go away, sick pay and unfair dismissal safety to make it out there from day one for all employees, topic to probationary intervals for brand new starters. The introduction of ‘day one’ rights is controversial with regard to the potential affect on small companies, though it is going to be welcomed by low-paid and susceptible employees in addition to the commerce unions that signify them.  
Extending protections to make it illegal, topic to restricted specified circumstances, to dismiss a girl who has had a child for six months after she has returned to work.  
Eradicating the decrease earnings restrict and the ready interval from the eligibility standards for recipients of statutory sick pay.  
Updating commerce union laws. That is anticipated to contain the repeal of the Commerce Union Act 2016 and Strikes (Minimal Service Ranges) Act 2023 and convey reforms that widen entry for commerce unions to enter workplaces for the aim of collective bargaining.  
Introducing sectoral collective bargaining by means of a good pay settlement (FPA) within the grownup social care sector, and reinstatement of the College Help Workers Negotiating Physique. The previous is the primary FPA within the UK and will comply with fashions used abroad. The latter was dropped by the Conservative-led coalition in 2010 as a result of it didn’t match with the (then) authorities’s priorities for higher deregulation of pay and situations for the estimated 500,000 assist workers in UK colleges.

Draft Equality (Race and Incapacity) Invoice

The purpose of this draft invoice is, we’re informed, to ‘enshrine the total proper to equal pay in legislation’ for individuals who are ethnic minorities and people who are disabled. Quite than following the format of the ERB, this draft invoice is because of be revealed for session earlier than it’s introduced to parliament, so will undoubtedly face comparability with the historic course of adopted for equal pay and gender pay hole reporting.

The invoice would additionally introduce obligatory ethnicity and incapacity pay reporting for employers with 250 or extra staff. It is because pay disparities exist for many ethnic minority teams in contrast with white British teams and likewise for disabled folks as compared with non-disabled folks. We would all hope that this runs extra easily than the equal pay issues which have troubled employment tribunals for many years.

Miscellaneous issues

Whereas no invoice expressly introduces rights and obligations referring to new applied sciences and synthetic intelligence, there was a robust trace within the King’s speech that this can be within the pipeline. In the interim, there’s a Digital Data and Sensible Knowledge Invoice. This creates an overlap between some current employment and information safety legal guidelines by way of information verification providers and plans to strengthen the Data Commissioner’s Workplace.  

One other necessary and complicated space of legislation that overlaps with employment legislation arises from proposed pension reforms.  First, a Pension Schemes Invoice which follows on from the final authorities’s ‘Mansion Home’ reforms introduced in July 2023. Second, an Audit Reform and Company Governance Invoice will exchange the Monetary Reporting Council, which regulates auditors, accountants and actuaries.

Total, given the dimensions of change, it appears honest to imagine that the following few years shall be very busy for employment legislation.

Bruce Robin is authorized officer and in-house solicitor at commerce union Unison