What does Labour's win mean for employers?

Labour has won a big majority in the general election. That means the party should be able to pass the new laws it wants easily. But what are those likely to be, and how will they impact employers?

The Labour manifesto outlines these key pledges;

• Employment status moving to a simpler two category framework for employment status, classifying people as either ‘workers’ or ‘genuinely self-employed’ for the purpose of workplace rights and protections. 

• All workers to be given the same basic employment rights and protections from the first day in a job.

• Turn the minimum wage into a real living wage that takes the cost of living into account, and plans to scrap minimum wage age bands for adults.

• Plans to scrap 'exploitative' zero hours contracts, including a new law that would give people a new right to a contract that reflects hours that are regularly worked (as judged against a 12-week reference period).

• A commitment to end the practice of "fire and rehire" as a lawful way to change an employee’s contractual terms.

• Strengthened redundancy rights and protections, for example, by ensuring the right to redundancy consultation is determined by the number of people impacted across the business rather than in one workplace.

• Strengthened trade union rights, and a new duty on employers to inform all new employees of their right to join a union and to remind all staff of this on a regular basis.

WHEN WILL THESE CHANGES COME INTO EFFECT?

These are some of the key policies that employers should be aware of, but others include the possibility that time limits for bringing Employment Tribunals claims would be extended to six months.

Labour have promised an Employment Rights Bill to introduce reforms within the first 100 days. It is unlikely that most reforms would actually take effect that quickly, but we could see some changes fairly quickly on workplace law.

If you need support with the implications of these proposed changes in your organisation, get in touch with a member of the Starford team via hello@starfordlegalhr.com