On 24 May 2024, the Labour Party published Labour's Plan to Make Work Pay, a rebranding of its New Deal for Working People, which sets out policy proposals for the workforce if elected to government and is described as the biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation. The proposals include new 'day one' and default rights, enhancing job security and collective bargaining, improving low pay, and establishment of a single enforcement body. The party has pledged to introduce legislation in Parliament within 100 days of entering government, subject to consulting with businesses, workers and civil society.
Key pledges include the following.
Ending 'one-sided flexibility' in favour of employers
- Banning exploitative zero-hours contracts and ensuring the right to have a contract that reflects the number of hours regularly worked, based on a 12-week reference period, while permitting employers to offer fixed-term contracts, including for seasonal work.
- Ending abuses of fire and rehire including by means of a new and strengthened code of practice (see FC Feature 29 May 2024) though restructuring will still be permitted in some circumstances where there is genuinely no alternative.
- Implementing basic rights of protection against unfair dismissal (without compromising employers' rights to use fair and transparent probationary periods), parental leave and sick pay from day one.
- Consulting on a framework that brings about a single status of worker that differentiates between workers and the genuinely self-employed.
- Strengthening redundancy rights and protections including the trigger for collective redundancy consultation being determined by the number of people impacted across the business (rather than in one workplace) and strengthening TUPE and whistleblowing protections (including those related to sexual harassment).
Family-friendly rights
- Flexible working to become the default from day one for all workers, except where it is not reasonably feasible, which is a substantial change from the current right to request flexible working (see FC Feature 2 April 2024).
- Parental leave to become a day one right; additional protection from maternity discrimination such that dismissal will be unlawful within six months of return to work (subject to exemptions); reviews of the Carer's Leave regime (see FC Feature 4 March 2024); and the law relating to bereavement leave to be clarified and extended.
- The right to switch off will be introduced as a new right so that working from home does not mean homes turn into 24/7 offices, and promoting a positive work-life balance for all workers.
Fair pay
- Improving low pay/minimum wage by, most significantly, seeking that the Low Pay Commission changes its remit to take into account the cost of living, ensuring that travel time is properly paid and removing discriminatory age bands.
- Enhanced statutory sick pay by removing the lower earnings limit to make it available to all workers and removing the waiting period.
- Fair tips through strengthening the law further (see FC Feature 23 April 2024) to ensure hospitality workers receive their tips in full and workers decide how tips are allocated.
- Unpaid internships to be banned except when part of an education or training course.
- Fixing adult social care via a New Deal for Social Care Workers and reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating Body to improve conditions for school support staff.
Voice at work/Collectivism
- Strengthening the rights of workers by empowering workers to organise collectively through trade unions and introducing a new duty on employers to regularly inform all employees of the right to join a union.
- Removing unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity by simplifying union recognition, updating and repealing legislation that restricts the operation of trade unions, such as modernising balloting rules and repealing legislation as to minimum service levels.
- Rights for trade unions to access workplaces in a regulated and responsible manner for recruitment and organising purposes and modernising rules on blacklisting.
Equality at work
- Equal pay measures bolstered to ensure outsourcing of services cannot be used by employers to avoid paying equal pay and strengthening equality impact assessments for public bodies.
- The socio-economic duty at s 1 Equality Act 2010 will be enacted and apply to public bodies in England and Wales, meaning public bodies will have to pay due regard to reducing inequalities because of socio-economic disadvantage.
- Large companies will need to introduce action plans to close gender pay gaps as well as continuing with pay reporting; mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting will be introduced for companies with more than 250 staff.
- Menopause Action Plans to be produced by large employers plus guidance for all employers on measures to be considered.
Rights at work
- Establishing a Single Enforcement Body to uphold workers' rights more efficiently.
- Employment tribunals to be further digitised, and the time limit within which employees are able to make an employment claim increased from three to six months.
- Making it easier to raise grievances through ACAS about conduct at work, including a new right to do so collectively.
- Public procurement measures including reversing the trend of outsourcing public services and implementing a New National Procurement Plan which mandates the consideration of social value and drives up employment standards.
First published on the Employment News Service on 29 May 2024.
Want to view more content like this? Or view our previous features? Sign up for a Free Trial to our corporate service.
To view our previous blogs, please visit the blog home page.
