The Employment Rights Bill that was included in the recent King’s Speech will be the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights employers and employees alike will have seen in a generation.
The most notable aim for the legislation that Labour has pledged to deliver within the first 100 days of its government is one to eliminate tiering of employee rights by tenure and the creation of a single status of worker.
Covered in this effort are moves to make parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal available to workers from day one on the job.
All employers will also be required to accommodate flexible working requests for all workers from day one “as far as is reasonable”.
The removal of the lower earnings limit on Statutory Sick Pay, with 1.5 million people currently under the threshold, will also contribute to the evening out of the playing field for employees.
The Bill also seeks to tackle exploitative practices and enhance employment rights through the banning of “exploitative” zero-hour contracts; while this is not an outright total ban on the contracts, the new legislation will mean that workers will have a right to a contract reflecting the number of hours they regularly work, with reasonable notice of any change in shift patterns to be made a requirement. The new government has said that this will put an end to “one-sided flexibility”.
Fire and rehire – making an employee redundant and then re-engaging them on reduced terms and conditions – will also be banned.
Also included in Labour’s ambitious agenda to transform employment legislation and workplace practices are family-friendly policies such as flexible working, increased bereavement leave, and the introduction of the right to switch off.
Elements of this legislation have been publicly discussed for years, but as we await full details, we know that plans to introduce so many new day-one employment rights will require extensive consultation with employers.
Compromise may be needed on the sides of both government and employers in order to reach an equilibrium whereby the positive impact on workplaces does not negatively affect employment opportunities.
Only some of these developments will be replicated in Northern Ireland, with others covered by the Department for the Economy.
Minister Conor Murphy has already set out his stall with his Good Jobs agenda, but it is inevitable that the precedents set by Labour will now find their way into answers to the currently open consultation on Good Jobs.
Here, as in Britain, the key for the success of the agenda will be the successful collaboration between government and employers to deliver a comfortable workplace that makes employees feel valued without endangering employment prospects.
- Brian Lenehan is HR consultant at Baker Tilly Mooney Moore