UK:
General Election 2019: Our At-A-Glance Guide To The Employment Law Proposals Of The Three Main Political Parties
05 December 2019
Brahams Dutt Badrick French LLP
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With Brexit, the NHS and the fitness or otherwise of party
leaders to be Prime Minister dominating the 2019 General Election,
you could be forgiven for having missed the some of the detailed
proposals set out in the parties' election manifestos. Here, we
compare the key proposals of the three main parties across various
areas of employment law.
With their attention fully focused on "getting Brexit
done", the Conservative party's proposals are thin on
the ground and light on detail. The few concrete proposals are
typically old ideas, originating from the Taylor Review or from
bills that fell when Parliament ended. The remainder of the
proposals contain many promises to conduct reviews or develop
strategies, with little in the way of firm commitment. Although not
in the written manifesto, in the last few days Chancellor Sajid
Javid has committed to reviewing the proposals to reform the IR35
regime in the private sector (due to come into force in April 2020)
to check if they are the right way forward.
By contrast, the Labour Party promises the "greatest
extension of workers' rights in history". Indeed,
their proposals are wide ranging, specific and radical, for
example, increasing holidays and reducing working time,
significantly strengthening trade unions and putting workers on
boards. They also plan to introduce a single worker employment
status with full employment rights from Day 1, meaning, for
example, that the hurdles to bringing an unfair dismissal claim
would be swept away.
Finally, the Liberal Democrats' proposals are mainly
directed towards helping workers operating within the gig economy.
Their statements in other areas are relatively modest, although,
like Labour, they make bold proposals for strengthening the voice
of workers in company decision-making.
|
Conservatives |
Labour |
Liberal
Democrats |
Employment rights in
general |
- Create a single enforcement body to
police abuses of employment laws.
- Extend the entitlement to leave for
unpaid carers to 1 week.
|
- Establish a new Ministry for
Employment Rights.
- Establish a Workers' Protection
Agency to enforce workplace rights.
- Keep Employment Tribunals free and
extend their powers.
- Introduce new Labour Courts.
- Strengthen redundancy and unfair
dismissal rights.
- Strengthen protection for
whistleblowers.
- Introduce 10 days' paid leave for
survivors of domestic abuse.
|
- Establish a new Worker Protection
Enforcement Authority to protect those in precarious work.
|
Employment
status |
- Give workers the right to request a
more predictable contract.
|
- Introduce a single status of worker
for everyone, apart from the genuinely self-employed.
- All workers to be given full
employment rights from Day 1 of their job.
- Ban zero hours contracts.
- Ban unpaid internships.
- Right to request a regular hours
contract after 12 weeks.
- Require proper notice from employer
for changes to working hours.
|
- Introduce a new dependent contractor
employment status which comes with basic employment rights such as
sick pay and holiday pay.
- Shift the burden of proof regarding
employment status from individual to employer.
- Review the tax and NICs status of
employees, dependent contractors and freelancers.
- Give agency workers and zero hours
workers the right to request a fixed hours contract after 12
months.
|
Independent
contractors |
- Review how the self-employed can be
better supported, for example by improving their access to finance
and credit, making the tax system easier to navigate and improving
broadband.
- Review whether the reforms to the
IR35 regime in the private sector are the right way forward.
|
- Self-employed to be given additional
rights e.g. free childcare and collective income protection
insurance schemes.
- Tackle late payments to the
self-employed, including by banning late payers from public
procurement.
|
- Review whether the reforms to the
IR35 regime in the private sector are the right way forward.
|
Equality and
diversity |
- Publish a National Strategy for
Disabled People before the end of 2020 which will look at ways to
improve job opportunities and access for disabled people.
- Reduce the disability employment
gap.
- Action to protect people from assault
or harassment on grounds of sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity,
religion or disability.
|
- Create a new Department for Women and
Equalities and a new Race Equality Unit.
- Enable positive action for
recruitment where greater diversity can be justified.
- Urgent review into the use of
all-BAME shortlists in public sector roles.
- Develop a cross-party strategy on how
to end under-representation in all aspects of public life and how
to increase diversity at all levels.
- Introduce new right to disability
leave to be recorded and treated separately to sick leave.
- Introduce a Code of Practice on
reasonable adjustments, including timescales for
implementation.
- Launch an inquiry into name-based
discrimination and consider rolling out name-blind recruitment
practices.
- Reintroduce employer's liability
for third party harassment.
- Require workplaces with 250+
employees to be certified by the Government on gender equality or
face fines (to be lowered to 50+ employees by 2020).
- Require all large employers to have
menopause policies.
|
- Extend protection for gender
reassignment to cover gender identity and expression.
- Recognition of non-binary gender
identities.
- Ban caste discrimination.
|
Pay gap reporting / equal
pay |
|
- Widen and strengthen existing gender
pay gap legislation.
- Extend pay gap reporting to BAME
workers.
- Extend pay gap reporting to disabled
workers (in companies with 250+ workers).
- Impose fines on employers who do not
take steps to close pay gaps.
- Make the state responsible for
enforcing equal pay.
|
- Extend pay gap reporting to BAME
employees.
- Extend pay gap reporting to LGBT
employees.
|
Working
mothers |
- Reform redundancy law so that
employers cannot discriminate against women when they return from
maternity leave.
|
- Extend statutory maternity pay from 9
months to 12 months.
- Ban the dismissal of pregnant women
without prior approval by a Government body.
|
- Parental leave rights from Day 1 of
employment.
|
Working
fathers |
- Promise to look at ways to made it
easier for fathers to take paternity leave.
|
- Extend statutory paternity leave from
2 to 4 weeks and increase statutory paternity pay.
|
- Parental leave rights from Day 1 of
employment.
- Extend statutory paternity leave from
2 to 6 weeks.
|
Other
family-friendly |
- New right for parents to take
extended leave for neo-natal care.
- Promise to help create higher
quality, affordable wrap around and school holiday childcare.
|
- Review all family-friendly rights
including rights to respond to family emergencies.
- New right to 30 hours per week of
free pre-school education for all children aged between 2 and 4
years old.
- New right to statutory bereavement
leave after the loss of a close family member.
|
- Employers required to publish
parental leave and pay policies.
- New right to 35 hours of free
childcare for 48 weeks per year for working parents with children
between the ages of 9 and 24 months.
|
Flexible
working |
- Encourage flexible working and
consult on making it the default position unless the employer has a
good reason.
|
- Make the right to request flexible
working a Day 1 right.
- Require all large employers to have
flexible working policies.
|
- Make the right to request flexible
working a Day 1 right.
- Employers to be required to advertise
jobs as open to flexible working unless good reason not to do
so.
|
Pay |
- Increase the National Living Wage to
2/3rds of average earnings and extend it to those aged 21 and over
(current age limit is 25).
|
- Rapidly introduce a Real Living Wage
of at least £10 per hour for all workers aged 16 and
over.
- Enforce payment for shift breaks and
cancelled shifts.
- Maximum pay ratios of 20:1 in the
public sector.
|
- Consult on how to set a genuine
Living Wage and pay that in the public sector.
- Setting a 20% higher minimum wage for
those engaged on zero hours contracts.
|
Working
hours |
|
- Introduce 4 new Bank Holidays.
- Keep Sunday trading restrictions in
place.
- Set up a Working Time Commission to
advise on raising minimum holiday entitlements and reducing weekly
working time.
- Abolish the opt out of the EU Working
Time Directive (thereby limiting the maximum working week to 48
hours).
- Within 10 years, reduce average
working hours to 32 hours per week without pro-rating pay.
- Review practice of unpaid
overtime.
|
|
Trade unions and
collective bargaining |
|
- Repeal of the Trade Union Act
2016.
- Introduce compulsory sectoral
collective bargaining on minimum standards for pay and working
hours, which every employer in that sector must follow.
- Introduce electronic balloting.
- Strengthen trade unions' right of
access to workplaces for activity and recruitment.
- Greater protections for trade union
representatives.
- Review and simplify the rules on
union recognition.
|
- Strengthen trade unions' right of
access to workplaces.
|
Corporate
governance |
- Improve incentives to tackle the
problem of excessive executive pay and rewards for failure.
|
- Introduce Exclusive Ownership Funds
to give employees a collective stake of up to 10% in the company,
with dividend payments of up to £500 per year per
worker.
- Require 1/3rd of seats on a company
board to be reserved for elected worker directors and given them a
say in executive pay.
|
- Employees in listed companies with
250+ employees would have the right to request shares in the
company.
- Stengthen the role of workers in
decision-making, including on remuneration committees.
- All UK-listed companies with 250+
employees to include at least 1 employee representative on the
board.
|
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
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