Since the Employment Rights Bill (the Bill) was published on 10 October 2024, the government has produced a raft of further documents that demonstrate its commitment to pushing the Bill forward at speed, including ten factsheets and four consultation papers (see our alert on the progress of the Bill here).
For further discussion of the Bill's proposals, you can listen to our podcast series, which covers key aspects of the Bill in depth across four episodes.
Episode One
Partners David Speakman and Stuart Craig, and Knowledge Lawyer Sara Meyer, focus on four of the Bill's proposals and their implications for employers:
- Making protection from unfair dismissal a day one right, and the lighter touch regime that will apply during the initial/probationary period of employment.
- Changing the trigger point for collective redundancy consultation to remove the reference to one "establishment" and focus on the number of proposed dismissals across the employer's business.
- Broadening rights to statutory sick pay (SSP) by making it payable from the first day of sickness absence and removing the lower earnings limit for eligibility.
- Creating a new single enforcement body for employment rights.
Episode Two
Partners Anjali Sharma and Sarah George, and Knowledge Lawyer Joanne Bell, discuss the family-friendly, equality and harassment related provisions of the Bill and their implications for employers, including:
- Making flexible working "the default" from day one of employment and how this differs from the current right to request flexible working.
- Providing protection from dismissal for employees who have taken maternity leave during the six months after their return.
- Making paternity and unpaid parental leave day one rights, and introducing a new day one right to statutory bereavement leave.
- Requiring large employers to publish action plans on gender equality and supporting employees through the menopause.
- Strengthening employers' duty to prevent sexual harassment at work.
Episode Three
Partners Nick Chronias and Philip Harman, and Knowledge Lawyer Sara Meyer, consider the Bill's trade union and industrial relations related proposals and their implications for employers. These include:
- Repealing key provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016, such as industrial action ballot thresholds, the requirement to provide 14 days' notice of industrial action, and union supervision of picketing.
- Giving unions a right of access to workplaces to meet, represent, recruit or organise workers and to facilitate collective bargaining.
- Making it easier for unions to obtain statutory recognition.
- Increasing legal protections from detriment and dismissal for workers who participate in protected industrial action.
Episode Four
Partners Louise Bloomfield and Tim Gooder, and Knowledge Lawyer Joanne Bell consider the planned restriction of "fire and rehire" practices (by making it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to agree to a change to their terms and conditions, except in very limited circumstances). They also discuss the proposals targeted at ending what the government refers to as "one sided flexibility", which include:
- Requiring employers to offer a contract for a guaranteed number of hours to zero and low hours workers, based on the hours they actually work over a reference period
- Introducing a requirement for employers to give eligible workers reasonable notice of shifts, and of any cancellation of or changes to their scheduled shifts
- Providing such workers with a right to compensation for short notice cancellations of or changes to their scheduled shifts.
