https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/a-new-deal-for-working-people/
The manifesto confirms that a Labour government would implement Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People in full and would introduce legislation reforming employment law within 100 days of entering office.
It indicates that a Labour government would consult fully before passing legislation that would:-
- include banning exploitative zero hours contracts;
- ending fire and re-hire as a lawful means of changing employment terms;
- introducing basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal (though likely subject to probationary periods);
- strengthening the collective voice of workers, including through their trade unions, and creating a Single Enforcement Body
- Ensure that the minimum wage is a genuine living wage, by changing the Low Pay Commission’s remit to take account of the cost of living. The age bands would be removed to entitle all adults to the same minimum wage.
- Take action to reduce the gender pay gap, strengthen protections from maternity and menopause discrimination and sexual harassment as well as strengthen protections for whistleblowers reporting sexual harassment.
- Introduce a Race Equality Act to address equal pay, strengthen protections against dual discrimination and “root out other racial inequalities” as well as introduce ethnicity pay gap reporting for large employers.
- Champion the rights of disabled people by introducing “the full right to equal pay for disabled people”, require large employers to report on their disability pay gap, improve employmentsupport and access to reasonable adjustments as well as tackle the Access to Work backlog.
- Modernise gender recognition law to remove indignities for trans people while retaining the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a specialist doctor to enable access to the healthcare pathway. Labourwould continue to support the implementation of the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act 2010.
Proposals previously announced under the New Deal included:-
- Flexible working was to be a day one right, where feasible;
- Moving towards a simpler framework with just workers (encompassing the current categories of employees and workers) as distinct from the genuinely self-employed. Under these proposals all workers would have the same rights e.g. unfair dismissal rights, and Labour proposed a clamp down on bogus self-employment;
- Increasing the time limit for bringing employment claims from 3 to 6 months;
- Removing unfair dismissal compensation caps;
- Tougher penalties on employers who break the law or breach Employment Tribunal Orders;
- Collective redundancy consultation being triggered by the number of redundancies across a business not in one entity/workplaces;
- A new right to switch off/ disconnect from the workplace outside of business hours;
- Unpaid internships to be banned except under an education or training course
- Pursuing a new deal for social care workers including a sector wide fair pay agreement;
- Strengthening TUPE protections; and
- Labour has indicated it would work with workers, trade unions, employers and experts to consider what Artificial Intelligence and other new technologies mean for work, jobs and skills and how to promote best practice in safeguarding against threats to privacy through surveillance technology, spyware and discriminatory algorithmic decision-making.
Conservative Manifesto 2024 (conservatives.com)
The Conservative and Unionist Party :– Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future
Within their manifesto the Conservatives have pledged:-
- an additional 2p cut to employee national insurance (NI)
- 30 hours of free childcare for working parents with children between nine months and the start of schooling from September 2025
- an amendment to the Equality Act 2010to define sex as biological sex
- a pledge to maintain the National Living Wage at two-thirds of median earnings during their next government
- a pledge not to raise income tax or VAT
- a pledge to continue the implementation of Minimum Service Level legislation to limit the impact of industrial action on public services and balance the ability of workers to strike with the rights of the public;
- an overhaul of the fit-note system to move away from GP-issued fit-notes
- 100,000 new high quality apprenticeships by the end of the next parliament; and
- All school-leavers aged 18 would be required to complete a period of mandatory National Service. There would be a choice between taking up a paid competitive placement in the armed forced or cyber defence, or carrying out the equivalent of one weekend a month (25 days a year) volunteering in the community for a year. This could include volunteering as a special constable, NHS responder or RNLI volunteer.
In addition the government will presumably be continuing their current legislative agenda including
- A second attempt to repeal regulations which prevents employment businesses from supplying agency workers to cover striking workers;
- Reform of the Umberella Contract market ;
- Re-introduction of employment tribunal fees (£55 per claim/appeal);
- Wider regulation of the use of NDAs e.g. in settlement agreements and employment contracts;
- Limiting the duration of post termination restrictive covenants to 3 months ;
- Reviewing current whistle-blowing;
- Abolishing European Works Councils & clarifying TUPE.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto
Worker status
- a new ‘dependent contractor’ employment status in between employment and self-employment, with entitlements to basic rights such as minimum earnings levels, sick pay and holiday entitlement
- a 20% higher minimum wage for people on zero-hour contracts at times of normal demand provide a right to request a fixed-hours contract after 12 months for ‘zero hours’ and agency workers which cannot to be unreasonably refused
- a review the tax and National Insurance status of employees as well as the Government’s off-payroll working IR35 reforms to ensure self-employed people, dependent contractors and freelancers are treated fairly
Maternity, parents and carers
- day-one rights for all parental leave and pay rights and an extension of the rights to self-employed parents
- doubling Statutory Maternity and Shared Parental Pay to £350 a week and introducing an extra ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ month for fathers and partners, with a cap for higher earners, paid at 90% of earnings
- requiring large employers to publish their parental leave and pay policies as well as to monitor and data on gender, ethnicity, disability, and LGBT+ employment levels, pay gaps and progression
- making caring and care experience protected characteristics as well as the introduction of paid carer’s leave and a Carer’s Minimum wage
Miscellaneous
- creating a new Worker Protection Enforcement Authority responsible for enforcing the minimum wage, tackling modern slavery and protecting agency workers
- improving Statutory Sick pay by making it available to those earning less than £123 a week, aligning it with National Minimum Wage and making it available from the first day of missed work
- a new right to flexible working and a right for every disabled person the right to work from home, unless there are significant business reasons why it is not possible
- a right to request shares for staff in listed companies with more than 250 employees
- a longer-term goal to introduce paid neonatal care leave
- changing the burden of proof in employment tribunals proceedings on employment status from individual to employer.