The Labour Party manifesto…

Labour Party

Employment Law

The Labour Party published its manifesto on 13 June 2024 and has made the following pledges relating to employment law.

• “Basic individual rights” will be provided from day one for all workers, including protection against unfair dismissal, parental leave and entitlement to sick pay. Employers will be able to operate probationary periods to assess new hires but any dismissal must be with good reason or cause and the employer will need fair and transparent rules and processes.
• Flexible working will be the default from day one for all workers, except where it is not reasonably feasible.
• Ending the practice of “fire and rehire” as a lawful means of changing an employee’s contractual terms. Labour has said that where changes to an employment contract are necessary, the employer “must follow a proper process based on dialogue and common understanding between employers and workers”.
• Employers will be required to create and maintain workplaces and working conditions free from harassment, including by third parties. The legal duty for employers to take all reasonable steps to stop sexual harassment before it starts will be strengthened.
• The publication of ethnicity and disability pay gaps will be made mandatory for employers with more than 250 staff, to mirror gender pay gap reporting.
• Large employers with more than 250 employees will be required to produce Menopause Action Plans, setting out how they will support employees through the menopause, much like gender pay gap action plans. Guidance, including guidance for small employers, will set out measures to consider relating to uniform and temperature, flexible working and recording menopause-related leave and absence.
• There is a plan to create a single status of “worker” for all but the genuinely self-employed, to replace the current three-tier structure of employment status (employees, workers and self-employed). Under the proposal, all individuals with worker status, regardless of sector, wage or type of contract, would be given the same rights and protections, including sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave and protection against unfair dismissal. Labour would also “clamp down” on bogus self-employment.
• The time limit to bring an employment tribunal claim will be increased from three to six months.
• There will be tougher penalties on employers who break the law or fail to comply with tribunal orders. This would include introducing personal liability for company directors.
• Any caps on compensation (including the statutory cap on unfair dismissal compensation and the cap on a week’s pay for the purposes of calculating certain compensatory payments) payable to workers following an employer’s breach of the law will be removed

• Labour has stated a desire to ban “exploitative” zero hours contracts and ensure that workers have the right to:
• a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, based on a twelve-week reference period; and
• reasonable notice of any change in shifts or working time, with compensation that is proportionate to the notice given for any shifts cancelled or curtailed.
• Parental leave will become a day one right.
• It will be made unlawful to dismiss a woman during pregnancy or within six months of her return to work, except in specified circumstances.
• An entitlement to bereavement leave would be clarified and extended to all workers.
• A new “right to switch off” will be introduced, providing workers the right to disconnect from work outside of working hours and not be contacted by their employer.
• A Labour government would increase statutory sick pay (SSP), remove the lower earnings limit to make it available to all workers and remove the three-day waiting period.
• Trade unions would be given a new reasonable right to access workplaces to allow unions officials to meet, represent, recruit and organise members, provided they give appropriate notice and comply with reasonable requests of the employer.
• Labour would introduce 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.
• There would be new rights and protections for trade unions reps to undertake their work, strengthening protections for trade union representatives against unfair dismissal and union members from intimidation, harassment, threats and blacklisting.
• Labour would “strengthen the existing set of rights and protections for workers subject to TUPE processes”.
• Labour will ensure that the national minimum wage (NMW) is a real living wage that people can live on. “Discriminatory age bands” will be removed to ensure every adult worker benefits.
• Labour will strengthen the law to ensure hospitality workers receive their tips in full and workers decide how tips are allocated.
• Unpaid internships would be banned except as part of an education or training course.
• To address the recruitment and retention crisis in the adult social care sector, the New Deal (May 2024) suggests that Labour would ensure better conditions, training and progression, along with a new “Fair Pay Agreement” in the sector.

Business immigration

In their mnifesto, Labour proposes to:

• Cut net migration “by linking immigration and skills policy” but, unlike the Conservatives, it will not set an overall target or cap.
• Ensure that migration to address skills shortages triggers a plan to upskill workers and improve working conditions in the UK.
• Reduce reliance on overseas workers in high-migration sectors including health and social care and construction, by bringing in workforce and training plans.
• Stop employers who flout the rules (examples in the manifesto include “abusing the visa system” and “breaches of employment law”) from hiring overseas workers.

Michael Nadin is a partner and employment law specialist at DFA Law.  If you have any questions about the information set out above, or employment law in general, please contact Michael on 01604 609 566 or by email here