Nathan May-O'Brien is a Solicitor at specialist employment law firm, Collingwood Legal. Nathan considers the potential employment law reforms which a Labour Government could seek to implement.
Recent opinion polls put the Labour Party ahead of the Conservative Party in terms of popular support. With the latest date for a general election being 28 January 2025, current projections suggest that the Labour Party may well win such an election and be able to legislate.
While we await the manifestos from the political parties, we do have some indications of what a potential Labour Government could do in terms of employment laws based on previous policy documents and speeches from Labour leadership.
1. Zero Hours Contracts
The Labour Party has consistently opposed zero hours contracts. In its New Deal for Working People it was proposed that Labour “will ban zero hours contracts”. However, the Guardian has recently suggested that there will be no outright ban and instead the practice will be allowed to continue provided it is not “abused” with some minimum standards expected from employers. It is thought that workers may be given the option to “opt-in” to zero hours working arrangements.
2. The “right to disconnect”
Deputy Leader, Angela Rayner, suggested last year that “constant emails and calls outside of work should not be the norm” and the Financial Times reported that such a policy was “likely” to appear in any manifesto. It is not known what form such a policy would take, save that it was suggested that any policy would learn from the experience in other countries. France, for example, introduced the right to disconnect in 2017 with workers being protected from detriment should they not respond to an email out of working hours.
3. Banning “fire and rehire”
The practice of fire and rehire has come under much scrutiny in recent years with a new statutory code of practice due to come into effect by July 2024. The Labour Party has previously committed to outlawing the practice. However, it is not currently clear whether the practice of dismissing an employee for rejecting an amended contract will be explicitly outlawed or whether the Labour Party will simply commit to strengthening the remedies and updating the currently proposed code of practice.
4. One “worker” status and day one rights
Perhaps most notable of the commitments in its New Deal for Working People was a commitment to create a single status of “worker” as opposed to the current statuses of “worker”, “employee” and “self-employed”. Moreover, such workers would receive “basic protections” including “rights to sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave, protection against unfair dismissal and many others” from the first day of their employment.
It appears that should the Labour Party form the next government, it will consult further on creating a single worker status, but it is not clear whether the removal of qualifying periods from, for example, unfair dismissal will take place regardless. Such a move would greatly expand the risks for employers dismissing an employee as the current 2-year qualifying period would no longer apply. It is thought that there will be a form of exception for staff who are in their probationary period, but it is not clear how such an exception would operate.
Comment
There are other proposals the Labour Party has made in the past, including reforms to Trade Union legislation and extending the time limit to bring Employment Tribunal claims. It will be important for employers to review the content of any manifesto as while reform has been on the agenda while in opposition, the actual content of the policy commitments may be different when it comes to a general election.
Collingwood Legal is a specialist employment law firm and we provide bespoke training and advice to organisations on all areas of employment law.
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