The government’s plans were set out in the Employment Rights Bill in the King’s Speech given on 17 July 2024, and is intended to implement Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay. It will represent ‘the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation’ and which employers will need to become familiar with.

The bill proposes to make the following changes:

• Banning exploitative zero-hour contracts - ensuring workers have a right to a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work and that all workers get reasonable notice of any changes in shift with proportionate compensation for any shifts cancelled or curtailed. This will end ‘one sided’ flexibility, ensuring all jobs provide a baseline level of security and predictability. 
• Ending the scourges of ‘Fire and Rehire’ and ‘Fire and Replace’ by reforming the law to provide effective remedies and replacing the previous Government’s inadequate statutory code. 
• Making parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal available from day 1 on the job for all workers. We will continue to ensure employers can operate probationary periods to assess new hires.
• Strengthening Statutory Sick Pay by removing the lower earnings limit to make it available to all workers as well as the waiting period. 
• Making flexible working the default from day-one for all workers, with employers required to accommodate this as far as is reasonable, to reflect the modern workplace.
• Strengthening protections for new mothers by making it unlawful to dismiss a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work, except in specific circumstances. 
• Establishing a new Single Enforcement Body, also known as a Fair Work Agency, to strengthen enforcement of workplace rights. 
• Establishing a Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector and, following review, assess how and to what extent such agreements could benefit other sectors.
• Reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, to establish national terms and conditions, career progression routes, and fair pay rates. 
• Updating trade union legislation so it is fit for a modern economy, removing unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity – including the previous Government’s approach to minimum service levels – and ensuring industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining. 
• Simplifying the process of statutory recognition and introduce a regulated route to ensure workers and union members have a reasonable right to access a union within workplaces.

The Telegraph has recently reported that the government plans to allow workers to work a compressed four day week as part of these new employment reforms. The right to request this is already a law, and has been a ‘day one’ right since April 2024. It is not clear whether this is a toughening of existing laws, or something new, but this should become clearer in October with the draft Bill.

Once the draft Bill is available for review, a further update will follow. In the meantime, the following is law, and comes into force next month.

OCTOBER 2024

Prevention of sexual harassment obligations

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act received Royal Assent at the end of October 2023 and imposes a new obligation for employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. It comes into force on 26 October 2024.

Employers should be taking positive steps to address this requirement as policies will not be enough to have taken “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of employees.

The EHR will be providing guidance following a consultation that ended on 6 August, which will be an update to their previous guidance issued in 2020, and see our recent case review here.

STILL TBC

Predictable Working Hours

The Worker (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 received Royal Assent in September 2023 and before the change in government was due to come into force in September 2024. The new legislation is part of the previous government’s agenda to provide security for the growing atypical workforce and those on uncertain zero hour contracts. 

Eligible workers who have unpredictable working patterns will have a new “right to request” a more predictable working pattern.  This could be in relation to the number of hours worked, the days and times worked, as well as the period for which they are contracted to work.  Up to two requests a year will be permitted.