Speaking at the Trade Union Congress’s annual conference, the Labour Party’s Deputy Leader Angela Raynor promised that a future Labour Government would introduce an Employment Rights Bill to Parliament within 100 days of taking office.

With the party currently enjoying sustained polling leads, and a general election due to be held no later than January 2025, this marks the potential for important changes to the UK’s employment laws. We recommend employers consider how the potential “biggest upgrade of workers rights in a generation” could affect their business should it come to pass.

Raynor set out a broad range of intended reforms.

Trade Unions

• Labour would repeal both the Trade Union Act 2016 and The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. The 2016Act instituted a higher 50 per cent turnout requirement for the validity of industrial ballots, a 40 per cent support threshold for workers involved in the delivery of “important” public services, and a 6-month expiry on ballot mandates amongst other measures. The 2023 Act will, when fully implemented, grant employers in certain sectors like health, transport, and education the ability to issue a “work notice” requiring a certain number of striking workers to work and ensure a minimum service is provided.
• Labour would also introduce more protections for union representatives and officials: allowing the use of electronic balloting and greater facility time. It is also intended that trade unions would also be able to recruit and organise members more freely with a right to access workplaces.
• The statutory union recognition process would be amended to make it simpler for “gig economy” workers and those working remotely to unionise.
• Collective bargaining, packaged as “Fair Pay Agreements”, would also be more widely encouraged with a “New Deal” for adult social care workers promised.

Blacklisting

• Labour would update the Blacklisting Regulations 2010 to prevent the use of predictive technology by employers to identify and discriminate against workers with documented union activity.
• Additionally, it would close a current loop hole in the existing blacklisting regulations by holding third parties liable for blacklisting activities that they carry out on behalf of employers.
• Employment Tribunals would also be given new remedial powers to order the destruction of blacklists in both physical and digital formats.

Zero Hour Contracts

• Labour intends to ban the use by employers of zero-hour contracts. While Raynor did not elaborate, Labour’s “Employment Rights Green Paper” stated that all contracts without a minimum number of guaranteed working hours would be prohibited. The Paper maintained though that Labour does not intend to prevent employers utilising flexible working patterns so this will be a difficult compromise...
• Additionally, if a worker works regular hours for twelve weeks, they would be entitled to a contract that reflects those hours.
• Workers would also be entitled to “reasonable notice” of changes made to their working hours by their employer with wages to be paid in full if this is not given.

Pay

• While a figure was not provided, Labour plans to increase the living wage.
• Statutory sick pay would become a day one right for all workers and the lower earning limit (currently £123 a week) would be removed. Raynor criticised the current SSP rate as the lowest across the OECD which suggests an increase to the rates would be likely too.
• Measures intended to shrink the gender pay gap and other social pay disparities would also be introduced.

Dismissal and Re-Engagement

• Citing P&O’s widely scrutinised dismissal of 786 UK staff to be replaced by lower paid agency workers in March 2022, Labour intends to ban dismissal and re-engagement, or “fire and rehire” practices. This is intended to be implemented through 1) a strengthened employee consultation process for negotiating contractual changes across a workforce, 2) including failure to agree to reduced contractual terms in unfair dismissal and redundancy protections, and 3) re-worked trade union notice and ballot requirements to prevent them being frustrated when dismissal and re-engagement is being implemented at speed.

Family-Friendly Working

• An additional “right to switch off” from work-related communications which you can read more about here.
• The extension of Statutory Maternity Leave (currently 52 weeks), and Statutory Paternity Leave (currently two weeks) along with reforms to the shared parental leave system to encourage increased sharing.
• Labour intends to make flexible working a day one right for workers although this may well be implemented by the current Government in 2024.
• Similarly, further rights to paid leave for carers, the bereaved, and for family emergencies alongside increased flexible working rights have also been set out, but have been subject to recent government-backed legislation.

Sexual Harassment at Work

• While the Government is backing the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill through the final stages of the legislative process, Labour have outlined their intentions to increase worker protections against sexual harassment at work. The government-backed Bill, which you can read more about here, would likely be revisited with increased duties on employers to maintain workplace protections for their staff.

While there is no guarantee of either a Labour electoral victory or these legislative changes coming to pass, the extent of the reforms is noteworthy. If you would like help conducting a mini audit of your current policies to identify areas of potential change or to ensure that these are currently legally compliant, please get in touch with our team who would be happy to help.

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