What a Labour government will mean for employment law

Sponsored feature | Andrew Buckley, partner, Woodfines Solicitors

As everyone now knows, the Labour Party won the General Election on 4 July and Sir Kier Starmer has become Prime Minister. Here, we examine what this is likely to mean for employment law.

On 13 June, the Labour Party published its election manifesto and it says it will implement Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People by introducing legislation within 100 days. The manifesto states that before legislation is passed, the government will consult fully with businesses, workers and civil society.

What are the employment law proposals in the plan? It’s a lengthy document – 24 pages – but it is well worth a read. These are some of the proposals.

- A ban on ‘exploitative’ zero hours contracts – workers will have an entitlement to a contract reflecting the hours they regularly work based on a 12-week reference period.

- A ban on fire and rehire, and fire and replace – the practice of an employer making workers ‘redundant’ and either offering those workers re-employment on new terms, or employing new workers. The plan recognises it is necessary that businesses can restructure to remain viable “when there is genuinely no alternative” – but this will be by dialogue and common understanding between the parties.

- A day 1 right to statutory sick pay (at the moment the first three days of sickness are generally unpaid under the statutory sick pay scheme).

- A day 1 right to bring unfair dismissal claims. At the moment, employees usually need to have two years of continuous service to prosecute a claim for unfair dismissal. The plan recognises that employers still need to be able to dismiss on the grounds of “capability, conduct or redundancy” and a probationary period with “fair and transparent rules and processes” will be permissible to assess new hires.

- Abolishing distinctions between workers and employees. At the moment we have a three-tier system for engaging help in the workplace: employees, workers and self-employed people. It is certainly the case that the dividing line between employees and workers can be opaque – and clarity would be useful. It is unclear though how this will operate; for example, will agency workers have the same rights as other (more long-standing) members of staff?

- Flexible working to be a “genuine default” to include flexi-time contracts and hours that accommodate school terms except where it is not reasonably feasible.

- A right to ‘switch off’ – ie turn off phones, etc, at home.

- Surveillance technologies will be subject to a process of consultation and negotiation. The government will work with workers, unions and employer to promote best practice in safeguarding against “invasion of privacy through surveillance technology, spyware, and discriminatory algorithmic decision making”.

- A “genuine” living wage for every adult worker which removes the existing age bands.

- An increase to the time limit to bring Employment Tribunal claims (it is currently three months for the majority of claims, and this may increase to six months – as is currently the case for redundancy pay claims).

Prudent employers reading may wish to consider:

- Dealing with problematic members of staff sooner rather than later.

- Reviewing how they rely upon casual (zero hours) members of staff.

- Reviewing the financial viability of existing contractual arrangements with members of staff – and taking action sooner rather than later.

- Ensuring they are confident that a new worker is the right fit for their business – or at a minimum having much more detailed probationary period provisions in their standard contract of employment, before hiring new staff.

- Reviewing their contracts of employment generally.

- Ensuring that they have proper employment support in place.

If you have any questions about this article, feel free to contact our Employment team at employmentsupport@woodfines.co.uk.

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