Employment Rights Bill

[A380]

My thoughtsd feel free to agree/disagree

Give protection against unfair dismissal from day one, while allowing employers to operate probation periods

Unfair dismissal protection from day one subject to a mandated and shorter probation period is a good idea. Being able to pretty much freely sack someone for the first two years is ridiculous. It's never affected me personally but loads of my kids friends and the kids of friends have fallen to this losing their jobs after 1 year and 11 months. If a company can't spot someone is a deadbeat in 6 months then that's their lookout.

Establish parental and bereavement leave from day one

Good idea in principal but I can see some employers being more reluctant to take on young especially married women. This needs policing.

End exploitative zero hour contracts

End unscrupulous practices of fire and rehire and fire and replace

Fuck Yeah can anyone seriously justify not supporting these?

Make flexible working the norm where practical

Good idea in principal again but I can see endless disputes over what flexible working is and what 'where practical' actually means.

Deliver stronger dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers

Yup no problem with this but again I wonder to what extent it might result in employers being less willing to take women of childbearing age.

Establish a new Fair Work Agency with new powers to enforce holiday pay

It needs to be able to do a lot more than just this, where most employment legislation falls flat is the lack of anyone with the statutory power to enforce it. Usually if you want to stand up for your rights you have to do it yourself bar those who are lucky enough to have the backing of a union. There needs to be someone who can enforce employment laws and punish those who break them.

Strengthen statutory sick pay

I presume this is political speak for just raise it.

The proof of the pudding is as always going to be in the eating, what actually comes into law without being watered down and enforced when it is but broadly I'm in favour of all this.

One of the usual suspects will be along shortly to explain that because it isn’t perfect ( and it is far from perfect) it’s worse than anything Hitler did as it’s delaying the revolution…

 

[PR1Berske]

You’d expect someone on first name terms with politicians to offer up a bit more insight really

I'm not on first name terms with any politicians.

 

[NoXion]

One of the usual suspects will be along shortly to explain that because it isn’t perfect ( and it is far from perfect) it’s worse than anything Hitler did as it’s delaying the revolution…

Are there actually any left-wing accelerationists here? IMO it's better than doing nothing, and probably better than what a Tory government would have produced. But that doesn't mean that it hasn't been watered down, or that it didn't go far enough before that happened.

 

[MickiQ]

One of the usual suspects will be along shortly to explain that because it isn’t perfect ( and it is far from perfect) it’s worse than anything Hitler did as it’s delaying the revolution…

The revolution has been cancelled due to budget constraints.

 

[LakieLady]

From the brief look I've had, the one that seems to need careful thinking about are the repercussions of the day one right to unfair dismissal.

A day-one right to unfair dismissal has significant consequences for businesses

Should the proposed legislation make it through parliament and be implemented, employers will need to consider several factors, explains Helen Crossland

www.peoplemanagement.co.uk

I don't have a problem with the right applying from day 1. The 9-month probationary period will enable employers to get rid of staff who under-perform or otherwise prove unsuitable, as long as they follow due process.

 

[brogdale]

I don't have a problem with the right applying from day 1. The 9-month probationary period will enable employers to get rid of staff who under-perform or otherwise prove unsuitable, as long as they follow due process.

"under-perform"?

In every job I've ever done I feel that I've massively over-performed given the very low rate of remuneration.

 

[The39thStep]

One of the usual suspects will be along shortly to explain that because it isn’t perfect ( and it is far from perfect) it’s worse than anything Hitler did as it’s delaying the revolution…

Can you explain why you think it is far from perfect and what additional measures you feel it should include?

 

[stethoscope]

I've also encountered a lot of new people into organisations, struggle or supposedly 'under perform' because they've come into an absolute shitpile of a situation not of their own making, which has almost set them up to fail. And rarely are organisations and management held to account for their responsibility in this (usually its left to other colleagues to try and support them through).

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I've also encountered a lot of new people into organisations, struggle or supposedly 'under perform' because they've come into an absolute shitpile of a situation not of their own making, which has almost set them up to fail. And rarely are organisations and management held to account for their responsibility in this (usually its left to other colleagues to try and support them through).

Me too. But, I've also experienced a few lead swingers. I've not got a problem with that unless and until it loads more work on to those who aren't.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't have a problem with the right applying from day 1. The 9-month probationary period will enable employers to get rid of staff who under-perform or otherwise prove unsuitable, as long as they follow due process

Everywhere I've worked the probation period has been 6 months, 9 seems excessuve

 

[LakieLady]

"under-perform"?

In every job I've ever done I feel that I've massively over-performed given the very low rate of remuneration.

Me too, but I've certainly had colleagues who've been massive skivers and slackers and have ended up either being "managed out" or made redundant in a round of cuts where people have had to compete for their jobs.

 

[nino_savatte]

The government's Employment Rights Bill won't mean anything if there's no rise in wages, progressive taxation and a reduction in utility bills, rail fares etc. Otherwise, it's just window-dressing/pissing in the wind. Fuck Labour.

 

[Gromit]

You’d expect someone on first name terms with politicians to offer up a bit more insight really

I’m on first name terms with a politician or two. Take it from me, that doesn’t lend much insight.

I can tell you that one likes jazz and the other dates women too young for him and who are obviously using him to get ahead.
Did any of that help?

 

[cesare]

110 pages of this 158 page bill are to do with repealing the tories' trade union "reforms" so there's that at least.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Everywhere I've worked the probation period has been 6 months, 9 seems excessuve

9 months is far too long. I used to give employers a 1 week probationary period, and I'd usually know within an hour or two if I was going to make it past midday without walking out.

 

[Mr Retro]

From the brief look I've had, the one that seems to need careful thinking about are the repercussions of the day one right to unfair dismissal.

I agree. In reality employers, especially small employers, will be far less inclined to employ people who they perceive to be “risky”.

 

[Mr Retro]

With these new laws and the potential increase in CGT it seems like Labour will not be a government for entrepreneurs and small business.

 

[hitmouse]

One of the usual suspects will be along shortly to explain that because it isn’t perfect ( and it is far from perfect) it’s worse than anything Hitler did as it’s delaying the revolution…

If you'd like, you could try engaging with the actual arguments that people are making on this thread, rather than just making up things that no-one's said and then getting annoyed at them?

110 pages of this 158 page bill are to do with repealing the tories' trade union "reforms" so there's that at least.

Had a bit of a look at what unions are saying about it - the TUC very pro, Unite considerably more measured. The TUC's summary is useful both for what it includes and what it leaves out, as in:

Unfair dismissal rights from the first day in the job, a clampdown on zero- and short-hours contracts, sick pay for all workers and beefed-up rights for unions to recruit and organise are among 28 key measures in the legislation.

Companies will no longer be able to fire and rehire workers – unless they are on the brink of going bust.

A loophole that allowed big chains to avoid consulting workers on planned job losses has been closed.

And ideological anti-union laws introduced by recent Tory ministers, including the notorious minimum service levels rules that sought to force workers to break their own strikes, will be scrapped.

Other measures such as giving trade unions the option to use electronic balloting, creating a single category of worker rights so some people aren’t condemned to second-class protections, and ensuring surveillance technology can’t be introduced behind workers’ backs are on track to be delivered in the coming months and years.

The option of electronic balloting would certainly be welcome and a step forward, but if the TUC's puff piece doesn't mention anything about it, that is strengthening my suspicion that Labour are backtracking on any intention of totally scrapping the 2016 threshold requirement. Let alone the older anti-union laws banning solidarity and political strikes, I can't imagine there's any chance those'll be touched any time soon.

 

[VivaE]

I don't have a problem with the right applying from day 1. The 9-month probationary period will enable employers to get rid of staff who under-perform or otherwise prove unsuitable, as long as they follow due process.

But why the need then for the right applying from day 1? It seems very much surplus to requirements in the light of the existing probationary period.

 

[InArduisFouette]

But why the need then for the right applying from day 1? It seems very much surplus to requirements in the light of the existing probationary period.

Probationary periods mean nothing in terms of current employment law with regard to protection from unfair dismissal , or indeed whether due processis applied i nthe dismissal of anyone with less than 2 years service ( although many organisation pretend that people who have completed probation but not got to 2 years have the same rights as 2 years + ... ( oddly enough plenty of opportunity for subtle discrimination there )

 

[hitmouse]

But why the need then for the right applying from day 1? It seems very much surplus to requirements in the light of the existing probationary period.

Unfair dismissal protections in practice are pretty weak even for the people who they apply to, if an employer wants to fire someone they can and then if the person has access to a solicitor they can take them to an employment tribunal and argue about it months and/or years down the line and maybe the tribunal will even find in their favour, but in the meantime they're still fired. It's not like it will be impossible for employers to fire people at any point in their employment, it just means that if the sacking gets appealed then they might then need to justify why it was fair, which seems fair enough.

 

[Ax^]

hmm at is probation not really 2 years as you not got protection from unfair dismissal until the first 2 years are up ..

no matter how long they say the probation period is

 

[redsquirrel]

If I was writing the bill, I would implement something along the line of the Norwegian collective pay bargaining processes and protections. I think this would do a lot more for workers than these wishy washy proposals in the Employment Rights Bill.

This is how your new pay will be decided – if you have a collective agreement

Working in Norway: Collective bargaining (tariffoppgjør), salary negotiations, pay bargaining (lønnsforhandlinger), trade union organisation (fagorganisering), collective agreement (tariffavtale)

frifagbevegelse.no

This.
I mean yeah all of those proposals are better but they are tiny beer - most employees cannot afford the time, effort, stress and money to go to an ET and even if they do the pay our they'll get is minimal. Employers know this which is why they are willing to push the boundaries.

If they were really interested in improving labour rights they'd empower workers collectively and remove the more severe anti-trade union shit

If you'd like, you could try engaging with the actual arguments that people are making on this thread, rather than just making up things that no-one's said and then getting annoyed at them?

That would require him changing a habit of a lifetime

 

[hitmouse]

Article giving a bit of actual analysis here:

The New Deal for Workers – a focus on ‘rights’ but what about power?

Labour’s long-awaited Employment Rights Bill does not do nearly enough to remove the restraints on trade unions or to give them the powers they need to make a significant difference to the lives of the millions of workers, write KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC

www.morningstaronline.co.uk

I have to admit that it does seem to be better than I expected if they actually are repealing the 2016 threshold, that is a fairly big change and I don't understand why the coverage so far doesn't seem to have mentioned it. I did have a look at the text of the bill to try and work out what was going on but this bill text stuff is hard if you're not used to dealing with it.

THERE is no doubt that the government should be praised for the significant improvement to employment rights set out in the Employment Rights Bill, published on October 10.

However, it must also be said that these proposals, set out in 119 sections over 105 pages and a further 43 pages of Schedules, come nowhere near the transformational proposals which Labour adopted in 2021 and 2022: A New Deal for Working People.

The bitter truth is that what working people (half the total population of Britain — with most of the rest dependent on them) need is not more individual rights, welcome as they may be, but greater power.

Power to have a real say over the pay, terms and conditions on which they work. That means freeing the trade unions from the shackles imposed in six Acts of Parliament by Thatcher’s crew in the 1980s and ’90s.

No-one else will represent workers. And to do that job unions need the power, when necessary, to organise industrial action and compel employers to bargain with them. What is also needed is a framework of laws which support collective bargaining and decent terms and conditions.

The Institute of Employment Rights has been arguing for a radical transformation of the law at work for over thirty years. Its publications were the inspiration for A New Deal.

Let’s take a look at the new Bill.

On trade union rights, there is no repeal of the anti-union legislation of the 1980s and ’90s. A New Deal committed the Labour Party to bringing our law on industrial action into line with the international laws (of the International Labour Organisation and the European Social Charter) which Britain has voluntarily ratified and agreed to be bound by.

Since at least 1989 every review by the international institutions of our laws on industrial action have found that they are non-compliant with the nation’s obligations. But the Bill does nothing to redress this situation and the breaches of international law will continue so long as the legal restraints on trade union action continue. In particular, the ban on sympathy action, criticised by the ILO since 1989 and, most recently, last year in its report on the P&O Ferries scandal, is untouched by the Bill.

True, the Bill does do away with the ballot thresholds of the Trade Union Act 2016 (so a simple majority vote in favour is restored) and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act is totally repealed. But the New Deal’s commitment (repeated just before the election in Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay) to secure workplace balloting has been abandoned. Although notice of industrial action is reduced to seven days, its complex requirements identifying the number of workers, their workplaces and their categories remain, though the New Deal promised to “examine how the requirement to give notice of industrial action should be simplified.”

The Bill also retains the equally complex requirements to give notice of having an industrial action ballot (the international bodies have heavily criticised this provision and the complexity of the legislation generally).

The Trade Union Act 2016 which A New Deal (and Labour’s Plan) said would be repealed is not repealed in full, though (credit where it’s due) many of its provisions are removed (detailed prescription of the contents of the voting paper, picket supervisors, various certification officer powers etc). There is a useful (but qualified to an extent not yet revealed) extension of protections against detriments or dismissal imposed for participating in lawful industrial action.

The central commitment of A New Deal, the rollout of sector-wide collective bargaining in all areas of the economy, has been put on ice except for school support staff in England and adult social care, though paradoxically the Bill is careful to make clear that the outcomes of these processes will not be collective agreements as they are normally understood.

Nevertheless, the procedures for these two sectors are straightforward and it is hard to see why they should not be deployed in respect of other sectors, notably school teachers, agriculture workers (with their particular history of exploitation), gig workers, hospitality and catering, parcel delivery and so on. Indeed, the government could begin by restoring national collective bargaining to its own Civil Service.

Although it is left to the statutory recognition procedure to carry the burden to grow collective bargaining, the procedure is to be only lightly amended and fails to take account of the serious problems exposed by the recent Amazon case. It will be recalled that despite being frustrated by the alleged anti-union activities of the company, GMB managed to secure 49.5 per cent support of workers who voted.

As GMB made clear after the event, the recognition procedure needs radical revision if it is to help trade unions to grow and expand the coverage of collective bargaining. Although it is true that provision is made for trade union access to workplaces for organising purposes, this is a mouse of a measure which adds very little to the existing arrangements.

It is a gross caricature to suggest that the Bill’s provisions for trade union access amount to a “right.” The Bill provides that a trade union will be able to ask an employer to enter into an access agreement (which they can do already). If the employer refuses, the union can complain to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) which can effectively impose an access arrangement.

However, if the employer refuses to observe an access agreement or fails to comply with an arrangement imposed by the CAC, there is no way by which the employer can be compelled to comply. If it is so minded the union can make another reference to the CAC to have a civil (financial) penalty imposed on the employer but this is payable to the government not the union, which walks away empty handed. It is also clear that the whole process will be open to procedural delays by the employer.

Much of the Bill is thus about individual employment rights, including welcome proposals for day one rights (to be subject, in an as yet undefined way, to a probation period), impenetrable provisions on zero-hours contracts (which will surely need to be simplified), and fire and rehire (which is not totally prohibited).

It will be unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to accept a contractual variation, but only if the employer is unable to persuade a tribunal that the reason for the dismissal was to “significantly mitigate” the effect of any financial difficulties affecting or likely in the immediate future to affect the business.

Provided the employer consults with the employees affected and with a recognised union, it will be home and dry if these conditions are met. As a result, the workers will be left without a remedy for standing on the terms of their contract. This falls well short of expectations, and will no doubt be the focus of intense parliamentary scrutiny.