The new Labour administration has reiterated its plans to legislate on a broad range of employment laws that have implications for OSH in its first 100 days in power, after winning a landslide victory in the UK’s General Election.
One of the items at the top of its list of priorities – as outlined in its manifesto – is a move to end ‘exploitative’ zero-hour contracts.
In its Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People , Labour argues all jobs should provide ‘a baseline level of security and predictability’.
To help achieve this, the new government plans to legislate so that ‘everyone has a right to have a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, based on a 12-week reference period’.
This policy is part of a broader move to end what the new administration sees as a ‘one-sided flexibility’ that largely benefits the employer.
The new administration wants to rebalance the employer-worker relationship so that all workers have greater protections through interventions such as ending ‘fire and rehire’ and ‘fire and replace’ practices.
As part of this process, Labour plans to reform current legislation to provide ‘effective remedies against abuse’ and says it will replace the government’s ‘inadequate’ statutory code with a ‘strengthened code of practice’.
‘Ending fire and rehire means workers can be safe in the knowledge that terms and conditions negotiated in good faith can’t be ripped up under threat of dismissal,’ says the new government.
The Labour administration also plans to provide basic individual rights from day one for all workers, arguing that this will end the current arbitrary system that leaves individuals waiting up to two years to access basic rights of protection against unfair dismissal, parental leave and sick pay.
The new government also plans to clarify worker status. Its Plan to Make Work Pay notes that the UK has a three-tier system for employment status: employees, self-employed or ‘workers’.
However, this makes it difficult for individuals to determine which category they are in and consequently what employment rights and protections they are entitled to. Business can also struggle to properly place staff and comply with its legal obligations, argues Labour.
To resolve this issue, the government says it will move towards a single status of worker while transitioning to a simpler two-part framework for employment status.
‘We will consult in detail on how a simpler framework that differentiates between workers and the genuinely self-employed could properly capture the breadth of employment relationships in the UK, adapt to changing forms of employment and guard against a minority of employers using novel contractual forms to avoid legal obligations, while ensuring that workers can benefit from flexible where they choose to do so,’ promises the administration.
‘We will also evaluate the way flexibility of “worker” status is used and understood across the workforce and the way it interacts with and is incorporated into collective agreements.’
‘What we see from Labour’s pledges is evolution rather than revolution,’ says Ian Manners, Partner at Ashfords LLP (see below).
‘For example, moves to clarify the status of the self-employed and the application of health and safety laws for the self-employed builds on work done in recent years to ensure that the self-employed and casual workers were brought within the ambit of the PPE regulations.
‘However, without any commitment to extra funding for regulators it remains to be seen whether, even with new guidance or new regulations, this leads to improved compliance and better regulation of our health and safety laws.’
