Last week a number of the UKs largest unions welcomed the government’s latest version of the employment rights bill. The bill is now at the report stage in the Commons before going to a third reading.
Employers were left smarting. The British Chambers of Commerce said the changes were “A concern to business”, the Federation of Small Business said ministers had “missed an opportunity to intervene to help business cope” and the Confederation of British Industry said businesses wanted “to avoid locking in details that could better be decided by a proper dialogue”.
Liam Byrne MP, chair of the Business and Trade Committee, was openly critical of some of the companies who gave evidence to his committee saying: “We’ve taken evidence about abuse of workers that has frankly horrified us” citing McDonald’s where new claims emerged of sexual misconduct in its outlets, complaints about poor working practices from couriers at the delivery company Evri and, Sports Direct who had had abandoned promises to reduce their reliance on agency workers.
And this week a group of leading economists and labour lawyers have published an open letter to expose business myths being used to stoke fear around the employment rights bill.
Unions and campaigners push for stronger protections
Unite’s Sharon Graham welcomed the bill – but was critical there was no outright ban on fire and rehire and wanted stronger measures on a union’s right to recruit, organise and have access to workers.
Gary Smith of the GMB said it was a massive step forward, but the bill was far from perfect, and Christina McAnea at Unison said that making work more secure will help lift families out of poverty.
The campaign for Trade Union Freedom is hosting a rally in London on 22 March to mobilise union reps and others to campaign for major improvements to the bill under the rubric of strengthening the employment rights bill. The rally will be addressed by leading employment law experts, union officials and union workplace reps.
Key areas of contention with the employment rights bill
Key issues include confusion over the single status of workers, which the campaign says has now been made overly complex with the introduction of a new category of workers.
The campaign acknowledges the bill proposes lowering the thresholds for workers and unions to initiate the union recognition procedure, with a simple majority of those voting, but says that any balloting system can be manipulated by anti-union employers and union busters such as happened at Amazon in Coventry in 2024.
Zero hours contracts have been a bone of contention. Labour originally said it there would be an outright ban on “exploitative” zero hours contracts, but the bill now says employers must offer zero hours and low hours workers a contract based on “guaranteed hours” drawn from a reference period – which workers would be free to decline. The campaign argues that there are insufficient safeguards to prevent workers from being coerced into not accepting a guaranteed hours contract.
The status of fire and rehire
Still contentious is fire and rehire, after Labour promised to end the practice following the P&O Ferries scandal three years ago.
The bill does not ban fire and rehire outright. Employers have been given an escape clause allowing them to argue that firing and rehiring workers was for a substantial business reason, to keep the business solvent. Plus, there is no immediate injunctive relief available to workers who are unfairly subjected to fire and rehire.
Trade union access to workplaces
The campaign argues that Labour had made a clear commitment to allow for trade union access to workplaces to recruit and organise workers, but the bill only sets out a procedure for negotiating with an employer to reach an access agreement – with an employer having to pay the equivalent of a fine if access to its workers is continually denied.
Labour’s promised to establish fair pay agreements (FPAs) across the economy on a ‘sector by sector’ basis but the bill only proposes two specific sectors where FPAs would apply – adult social care and school support staff – and if the secretary of state does not like a deal, they reach the appropriate minister can impose a settlement.
On industrial and strike action, Labour made a commitment to “repeal anti-trade union legislation in order to remove unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity”. However, the bill only proposes to repeal the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and most, but not all, of the Trade Union Act 2016 stays.
On equalities the bill falls short of Labour’s promises and pro-worker protection will be enacted through regulations rather than primary legislation which allows for much more ministerial discretion.
