Labour’s plans for radical reform of employment law were confirmed recently in a speech at the TUC conference.

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In anticipation of the next UK general election taking place in 2024, the Labour Party has been promising employment law reforms of a greater magnitude than, arguably, any time in the last 40 years. 

In a speech at the TUC conference in Liverpool recently, Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner gave a commitment to bring forward an employment rights bill within the first 100 days of Labour entering office.  This is part of a promised “New Deal for Working People”.

Labour’s wide-ranging proposals for reform to date, include:

• Major changes to unfair dismissal protection, including the removal of the 2 year service requirement.
• Proposal to ban zero hours contracts.
• Proposals to balance work and home life, including the right to disconnect, greater flexible working rights and enhancing childcare leave entitlements.
• Proposals to reform employment status, including removing the distinction between “employee” and “worker” which currently exists; and ensuring all employees/workers are entitled to a wide range of rights.
• Far-reaching proposals to expand trade union rights, including sectoral collective bargaining and repealing various “anti-trade union” laws, most notably repealing the Trade Union Act 2016 and the associated restrictions on taking industrial action. 

The recent speech has confirmed many of these proposals.  There was a particular focus on the trade union reforms, with Labour confirming that they would ask Parliament to repeal various “anti-trade union” laws within their first 100 days.  Other significant reforms were also listed, including day one basic rights, a ban on zero hour contracts, an end to fire and rehire, and better sick pay for all workers.

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With any reform of the law, the details are of critical importance. Rapid change has been promised in relation to trade union rights.  However, for reforms to individual rights, the promise is only for an employment rights bill to be introduced within the first 100 days.  This does not mean that actual change will happen that quickly – particularly if detail is left to implementing regulations, as is the case with current government reforms such as extending redundancy protection for pregnancy and maternity returners, and the new right to neonatal leave and pay.

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Prior to the speech, some media reports had covered potential diluting of some key pledges on worker rights.  The Labour Party’s policy forum had agreed in July to consult on the proposal to create a single “worker” status, and they caveated their plan for “day one” rights (including unfair dismissal) by saying this would not prevent “probationary periods with fair and transparent rules and processes”.  These detailed issues were not covered in the recent speech, so it remains to be seen whether some of the proposals will be quite as radical as they first appeared.

Nevertheless, if implemented, Labour’s package of proposed reforms would represent the most transformational change to UK employment law in decades.  Employers should start considering the potential implications for their operations well in advance.

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If you have any specific questions you would like advice on, then please contact: Abi.Frederick@lewissilkin.com (Lewis Silkin LLP) or koichiro_nakada@btinternet.com.