What could the July general election mean for employment law? | Consensus HR in Herts & Beds.
Latest blog: July 2024 Election and what it could mean to Employment Law…
Since the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that a general election will be held on 4 July 2024, our Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) have produced the main political parties’ positions on workplace reform.
Labour:
- Day-one rights: Remove qualifying periods for basic rights like unfair dismissal, sick pay, and parental leave so they become day-one rights
- Strengthen rights: Strengthen existing rights and protections, including for pregnant workers, whistle-blowers, workers made redundant, and workers subject to TUPE processes.
- Sick pay: Increase Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) and make it available for all workers including those currently excluded because of low wages
- Tackle harassment: Require employers to create and maintain workplaces and working conditions free from harassment, including by third parties.
- Family-friendly:Extend statutory maternity and paternity leave; introduce right to bereavement leave; make it unlawful to dismiss pregnant employees for six months after return from maternity leave except in specific circumstances; and review shared parental leave system.
- Zero-hours contracts: Ban “one-sided” flexibility; anyone working regular hours for 12 weeks or more will gain right to a regular contract to reflect hours worked; and all workers to get reasonable notice of any change in shifts or working time, and recompense for cancelled shifts.
- Mental health:Raise awareness of neurodiversity; and review provision for stress, mental health, and Long Covid.
- Update trade union laws:Strengthen trade union right of entry to workplaces; simplify process of union recognition; strengthen protections for trade union reps; and new duty on employers to inform workforce of right to join a union.
- Raise wages for workers:Continue commitment to raise National Living Wage; immediately increase National Minimum Wage (NMW) to at least £10 per hour for all workers whose NMW rate is not at that level; reform role of the Low Pay Commission; ensure travel time in sectors with multiple working sites is paid; act on “sleep over” hours in sectors like social care; ban certain unpaid internships; and create Fair Pay Agreements.
- Close pay gaps:Act to close gender, ethnicity, and disability pay gaps; permit equal pay comparisons across employers where comparable work is carried out; and publication of ethnicity pay gap to be mandatory for firms with more than 250 staff.
- Flexible working:Default right to flexible working from day one with employers required to accommodate this as far as is reasonable.
- Caring responsibilities: Strengthen rights of workers to respond to family emergencies with paid family and carer’s leave, flexible working, and greater ability for workers to enforce rights.
- Fire and re-hire:Improve information and consultation procedures; and adapt unfair dismissal and redundancy legislation to prevent workers being dismissed for not agreeing to a worse contract.
- Right to switch off: Introduce a new right to disconnect and protect workers from remote surveillance.
- Enforcement rights:Extend time limit for bringing employment tribunal claims; and remove compensation caps.
Conservatives:
- Continue current agenda: Neonatal care leave and pay; reform of industrial action laws; Back to Work Plan including proposed reform of fit notes; reform of umbrella company market; continue with National Disability Strategy; address definition of “sex” in Equality Act 2010; re-introduction of employment tribunal fees; reform of non-compete clauses; and proposed reform to TUPE.
- Bills currently being debated:Various including Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Bill; Bullying and Respect at Work Bill; Fertility Treatment (Employment Rights) Bill; and Unpaid Trial Work Periods (Prohibition) Bill.
Liberal Democrats:
- Parental leave reform:Give all workers, including self-employed parents, a day-one right to parental leave and pay. Each parent would get six weeks of “use-it-or-lose-it” leave, with 46 weeks of parental leave to share between themselves as they choose. After the initial six weeks, parental pay would be £350 per week.
- Increase paternity pay:Increase paternity pay to 90% of earnings, with a cap for high earners.
Our HR comment:
Matthew Chilcott, Owner of Consensus HR, comments:
“This is an interesting article recently published by our Chartered Institute, the CIPD. It indicates that should a specific party win the next General Election, there will likely be significant changes in Employment Law based on their proposals. Only after the 4th of July, 2024, will we begin to understand what changes are coming and their implementation timeline. At Consensus HR, we refrain from discussing politics, as we believe it is a personal choice. However, we are prepared to ensure that all our clients are up to date with best practices and the latest legal requirements, regardless of the changes.”
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