With just a few days to go before the general election on 4th July, we have summarised below, the key pledges of the political parties in relation to employment law and employment related issues.
Labour Party manifesto
Labour has produced the most comprehensive set of initiatives in their “Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People”. Should they win the election, Labour has said it will introduce an Employment Bill within the first 100 days. The major changes sought are as follows:
Creating a single status of “worker” for all those except the genuinely self-employed, to help reduce cases at the tribunal dealing with arguments over employment status.
Strengthening rights and protections for the self-employed including the right to a written contract.
Abolishing qualifying periods for basic employment rights like unfair dismissal so that it becomes a day one right and extending these rights to all workers.
Increasing the time limit within which workers are able to make an employment claim from three to six months (as for statutory redundancy and equal pay claims).
Banning “exploitative” zero hours contracts so that all workers have a guaranteed minimum number of hours’ work. Anyone working over 12 hours or more a week will be entitled to a regular contract.
Making it unlawful to dismiss a woman for 6 months after returning to work from maternity leave. This right was applied to redundancy dismissal but Labour plan to extend it to all dismissals.
Regarding trade unions: Establishing “fair pay” agreements that are a “floor” to resurrect trade union activity and collective bargaining; repealing the Trade Union Act 2016, Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Bill, and Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022; simplifying the process of union recognition (which will be particularly relevant for workers in the gig economy) and introducing a new duty on employers to inform new employees of their right to join a union.
Mandating ethnicity pay gap audits from employers with over 250 employees (to mirror gender pay gap audits) and extending equal pay rights to BAME workers.
Outlawing fire and rehire, replacing the process with consultation and updating the statutory code of conduct.
Banning unpaid internships.
Strengthening redundancy protections so that consultation is determined by the number of people impacted across the business rather than in one workplace.
Strengthening protection for whistle-blowers including for women who report sexual harassment at work.
Introducing the “right to switch off” so that homes do not become 24/7 offices.
Removing the current age bands for the National Minimum and Living Wage to ensure every adult worker benefits.
Widening entitlement to statutory sick pay by removing the lower earnings limit and the waiting period which is currently 3 days.
Requiring large employers with more than 250 employees to produce a Menopause Action Plan as to how to support employees through the menopause (uniform, temperature, flexible working and recording menopause-related leave and absence).
Creating a single enforcement body for workers' rights to ensure greater coordination in enforcing workers’ rights.
Making it easier for workers to raise grievances, including enabling employees to collectively raise grievances to ACAS.
Conservative Party manifesto
The Conservative Party manifesto does not contain changes to employment laws which are as significant as those proposed by the Labour, but it does include a number of policies which will impact rights and obligations in the workplace:
Cutting employee national insurance to 6% by April 2027, meaning that the rate will have halved from 12% at the beginning of 2024 and the average worker earning £35,000 a year, will see a tax cut of £1,350 by April 2027.
Maintaining the National Living Wage (currently £11.44 per hour) in each year of the next Parliament at two-thirds of median earnings. Current forecasts predict this will allow the National Living Wage to rise to £13 an hour.
Introducing primary legislation to clarify that the protected characteristic of sex in Equality Act 2010 means biological sex, in order to guarantee that single sex spaces can be provided.
Ensuring eligible parents of children between 9 months and 2 years, can access 15 hours of free childcare a week and from September 2025, 30 hours.
Overhauling current system of fit notes so that specialist work and health professionals and not GPs, provide them.
Continuing implementation of Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 in order to limit the impact of industrial action on public services.
Reintroduction of National Service, making it mandatory for all 18-year-olds who will be given two options: a volunteering role in the civic service, such as an NHS Responder or RNLI volunteer, for the time equivalent of one weekend per month or military service involving a year long paid placement with the armed forces or cyber defence.
Providing adults with support to train, retrain and upskill flexibly throughout their working lives.
Funding 100,000 high quality apprenticeships for young people by curbing the number of poor-quality university degrees.
Liberal Democrat Party manifesto
The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto involves minimal legislative change but with the introduction of some novel ideas:
Encouraging employee share ownership in listed companies with 250 plus staff.
Boosting the take up of apprenticeships through guaranteeing pay at the rate of at least the National Minimum Wage and scrapping the lower apprentice rate.
Like Labour, creating a new authority to consolidate various enforcement responsibilities, ensuring compliance with minimum wage laws, tackling modern slavery and protecting agency workers.
Creating an independent review to recommend a genuine living wage and modernising employment rights to suit the 'gig economy'. This includes creating a ‘new’ employment status for 'dependent contractors', giving them basic rights to minimum earnings, sick pay and holiday entitlement.
Green Party manifesto
The thrust of the Green Party’s manifesto is to defend and extend workers’ rights to organise in the workplace and in particular:
Repealing all current anti-union legislation and replacing it with a “Charter of Workers Rights”, with the right to strike at its heart along with a legal obligation for all employers to recognise trade unions.
A maximum 10:1 pay ratio for all private and public sector organizations to lessen the gap between top earners and the lower paid in organisations. This means a company’s senior-level workers would not earn more than ten times the lowest-earning worker’s salary.
An increase in the minimum wage to £15 an hour, no matter an individual’s age, with the costs to small businesses being offset by reducing their national insurance payments.
Equal employment rights for all workers from day one, including those working in the gig economy and on zero-hours contracts. Gig employers that repeatedly break employment, data protection or tax law would be denied licences to operate.
A move to a four-day working week.
Addressing the issue of pay for NHS workers so that they are not “lost overseas".
Extending pay gap protection to protected characteristics including ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation.