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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.
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- 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.
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- Establish a new Worker Protection
Enforcement Authority to protect those in precarious work.
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Employment
status |
- Give workers the right to request a
more predictable contract.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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 |
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- 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.
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- Extend pay gap reporting to BAME
employees.
- Extend pay gap reporting to LGBT
employees.
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Working
mothers |
- Reform redundancy law so that
employers cannot discriminate against women when they return from
maternity leave.
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- Extend statutory maternity pay from 9
months to 12 months.
- Ban the dismissal of pregnant women
without prior approval by a Government body.
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- 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.
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- Extend statutory paternity leave from
2 to 4 weeks and increase statutory paternity pay.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Make the right to request flexible
working a Day 1 right.
- Require all large employers to have
flexible working policies.
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- 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).
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- 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.
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- 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.
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Working
hours |
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- 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.
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Trade unions and
collective bargaining |
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- 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.
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- Strengthen trade unions' right of
access to workplaces.
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Corporate
governance |
- Improve incentives to tackle the
problem of excessive executive pay and rewards for failure.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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