UK Employment Rights Bill — what Labour promised, and what workers got

At long last, Labour’s flagship Employment Rights Bill cleared its final parliamentary hurdle on 16 December. Now, the bill is waiting for royal assent (formal approval by the King), which is expected by the end of the week.

The shadow business and trade minister — Tory Andrew Sharpe — tabled an amendment, but quickly removed it after a short discussion. With that last roadblock removed, the bill made it through the House of Lords.

Employment Rights Bill: up in the air

The bill’s exact effects aren’t yet set in stone. This is because secondary legislation will be required to define the details. However, the main objectives of the bill are clear.

These include improved paternity leave and day-one sick pay. It also strengthens unions’ roles in protecting their members’ rights in the workplace.

However, this undoubtedly massive improvement on the pitiful state of workers’ rights in the UK isn’t a clear cut victory. Multiple rounds of parliamentary ping-pong saw the bill weakened in multiple key areas and ultimately betraying workers on several fronts.

Today, we’re going to take a look at those losses, amendments and climb-downs. So, without further ado, here’s the Employment Rights Bill: What You Could Have Won.

No more day-one unfair dismissal protections

Labour’s flagship fuckup was always going to come first here, wasn’t it? The party’s manifesto touted day-one protections against unfair dismissals. However, Labour broke that promise in the name of speeding the Bill through parliament before Christmas. That said, we still had another round of ping-pong anyway.

Now, instead of day-one protections, the House of Lords instated a six-month qualifying period. This will take effect on 1 January 2027.

However, whilst it would usually be the case that the unfair dismissal qualifying period shifted up and down according to whoever is in power at the time, this will no longer be the case. If the next ruling party wants to shift the six-month limit, they’ll have to pass primary legislation to do so.

This means that it will be far harder for the Tories or Reform (or, let’s face it, another spineless iteration of Labour) to scrap the new protections once they take power. A silver lining on a bloody great big manifesto-breaking cloud, but still.

Weaker rules on collective redundancies

As the law currently stands, employers have to initiate collective consultation if they plan to make more than 20 people redundant “at one establishment”. In its original form, the bill would have scrapped references to the “at one establishment” test for collective redundancies.

However, a March amendment added the “at one establishment” clause back in. It also instated another test, this time applied across the the entire business as a whole. What exactly this will look like, we’re not sure yet – but it will necessarily be a greater percentage of redundancies than the threshold for a single establishment.

So, kinda what we were getting in the first instance – but worse!

….Oh go on then, if you really need to fire and rehire

Labour also conceded several of the more stringent restrictions on fire and rehire.

Rather than a blanket consideration of the practice as unfair, it will now only be considered foul play when certain core conditions are changed. These include pay, shift times and length, time off rights, required number of working hours, and pensions.

That’s weaker than what we would have gotten, but still covers a lot of important things – right? Well, there’s a catch (there’s always a catch).

The final version of the bill includes an exception to the above rules for a business in extreme financial distress. In that situation, the business will need to follow the standard code of practice. Whilst that will resemble the current situation, the government has said that it will update the code sometime in the near future.

If that sounds like a load of bollocks to you, that’s because it is. It amounts to the government rewarding a company for failing by letting them get away with shittier labour practices. Companies can do a little fire and rehire, as a treat.

‘An historic day’

Overall, the Employment Rights Bill brings a raft of sorely-needed protections for workers in the UK.

Commenting on the bill’s passing in the Lords, Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak said:

This is an historic day and early Christmas present for working people across the country, and the trade unions who represent them.

Banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, sick pay for all, expanding parental and bereavement leave, strengthening protections for pregnant women, whistleblowers and victims of sexual harassment, repealing Tory anti-union laws, ensuring union access to workplaces, establishing a social care fair pay agreement – these are just some of the watershed measures this Bill will now deliver.

Unions and workers have long campaigned for these vital rights. Together, we have broken a decades long economic status quo defined by insecurity, weak rights and poor pay.

However, looking at the original draft compared to the final version, it’s easy to see why Unite general secretary Sharon Graham called the bill a “shell of its former self”.

After the bill receives royal assent, there will be a long wait to see exactly how the secondary legislation plays out. The largest part of the fight is won, but what exactly the Employment Rights Bill will mean — and how closely Labour will stick to its guns — remains to be seen.

For now though, as Nowak stated, workers can enjoy the early Christmas present of greater rights to come (and I can stop writing three articles a week on this interminable bloody parliamentary process). Cheers!

Featured image via the Canary/Unsplash