The King’s Speech: Labour’s commitment to employment rights

Today, the new Labour government’s first King’s Speech announced a commitment to legislation that will “ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights”.

The Prime Minister’s briefing notes declare an Employment Rights Bill, which is proposed to be introduced within the new government’s first 100 days in office. The Bill is considered to be a “significant step” towards the government’s Make Work Pay plan to “create a new partnership between business, trade unions and working people”.

At a glance, Labour’s key commitments to workers’ rights include:

• delivering a genuine living wage that accounts for the cost of living, with the removal of “discriminatory” age bands;
• banning “exploitative” zero hour contracts, ensuring workers have a right to a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, reasonable notice for shift changes and proportionate compensation for shift cancellations;
• bringing an end to ‘fire and rehire’ and ‘fire and replace’ practices;
• making protection from unfair dismissal a day one right for all workers;
• making flexible working, sick pay and parental leave available to all workers from day one;
• making it unlawful to dismiss a women who has had a baby within the first 6 months of her return to work;
• establishing a new Single Enforcement Body, known as a Fair Working Agency to enforce workplace rights;
• strengthening Statutory Sick Pay by removing the lower earnings limit;
• establishing a Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector, with the possibility to extend such agreements to sectors if considered to be beneficial;
• reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, to establish national terms and conditions, career progression routes, and fair pay rates;
• simplifying the process of statutory recognition for trade unions; and
• updating trade union legislation, such as repealing the law on minimum service levels in relation to industrial action and introducing a right for workers and union members to access a union at work.

The briefing notes refer to the bill delivering “on policies as set out in the Plan to Make Work Pay”. The Plan, published by the Labour party during the election campaign, sets out substantial and ambitious employment law reforms. Some of which have made it into the briefing notes, such as the ban on zero hour contracts and provision of basic day one rights for all workers. Others, such as an increased time limit (from 3 months to 6 months) for employees to bring an employment claim and a requirement for certain large employers to produce ‘Menopause Action Plans’ have not yet been formally announced since Labour came into power.

Therefore, until the draft Bill is released, it remains to be seen whether the commitments revealed today are just the tip of the iceberg, or a comprehensive list of expected employment changes to come.