Law and Labour » Trade unions

Employment Rights Bill update

Law and Labour — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 12:20:27 +0000

The Employment Rights Bill will bring sweeping changes to many areas of employment law once its provisions come into force. Its reforms will affect unfair dismissal, flexible working, statutory sick pay (SSP), family leave, fire and rehire, zero hours contracts and trade union law.

Between October and December 2024, the government consulted on four areas of the Bill: zero hours contracts, fire and rehire, trade unions and SSP. In March 2025, the government published its response to those consultations and also announced a series of amendments to the Bill.

The amendments include:

Zero hours contracts – the right to request contracts with guaranteed hours will apply to agency workers. Employers will have a duty to provide workers with a range of information about their right to guaranteed hours. Flexible working – there will be a new requirement for any refusal of a flexible working request on one of the statutory grounds to be reasonable. Employers will also have to explain their reason for refusal. SSP – low paid workers will no longer need to earn above the lower earnings limit to qualify for SSP. They will receive either 80% of their average weekly earnings or the current rate of SSP, whichever is lower. SSP will be payable from the first day of sickness absence. Workplace harassment – employers will have a duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent harassment of their employees by third parties. Employers could face civil claims for harassment where they have failed to take such steps. Redundancy collective consultation – the maximum period of the protective award will increase from 90 days to 180 days. Trade unions – there will be a series of changes to trade union and strike rules, such as changing the current notice period for industrial action from 7 to 10 days. Industrial action mandates will expire after 12 months instead of after 6 months.

We continue to monitor for further amendments.

Photograph: “people-400818_1280”.

Employment rights get an uplift from new Labour Government

Law and Labour — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 15:21:53 +0000

One of the key elements of the Labour Party’s manifesto for the 2024 general election was its “Plan to Make Work Pay”. Among the promises in the Plan were that the Party, if elected, would deliver a “genuine living wage”, ban “exploitative zero hours contracts” and end fire and rehire practices. In Labour’s first King’s Speech since being elected to government, it sought to make good on those promises.

The government plans to introduce significant changes to some key areas of employment law, primarily through the new Employment Rights Bill. The content of the Bill is not yet known, but a briefing note from the government sets out the main proposals.

They are to:

make parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal “day 1 rights”, subject to probationary periods; ban zero hours contracts; end fire and rehire and fire and replace practices; strengthen statutory sick pay by removing the three-day waiting period and the lower earnings limit; make flexible working a day 1 right; make it unlawful to dismiss a woman within 6 months of her return to work from maternity leave, except in specific circumstances; establish a new body called the Fair Work Agency to aid in the enforcement of workplace rights; establish a Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector; reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body; remove certain restrictions on trade union activity, including minimum service levels; and simplify the route to statutory recognition.

The government says these changes will be introduced within its first 100 days of taking office, so the draft bill is anticipated shortly. The bill will apply to England, Scotland and Wales.

In addition, the government also announced a new Equality (Race and Disability) Bill which intends to “enshrine the full right to equal pay in law” for persons from ethnic minorities and disabled persons. This bill proposes mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting. We await further details as to how such reporting will work in practice.

Photograph: “Pedestrians” by Pixabay user Brian Merrill used under Pixabay content licence

Deliveroo riders are not workers

Law and Labour — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 16:54:08 +0000

Background

Deliveroo is a food-delivery service that utilises motorbike and bicycle riders to deliver takeaway food from restaurants to customers. In London, its riders are assigned to specific geographic zones.

In November 2016, the trade union the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) applied to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) for recognition for collective bargaining in connection with Deliveroo riders working in the Camden and Kentish Town (CKT) area. Deliveroo opposed the application by arguing that its riders were not ‘workers’ as defined within trade union legislation.

CAC decision

The test for recognition required the CAC to determine whether 10% of workers in the proposed bargaining unit were in favour of union recognition. The starting point for the CAC was whether any rider in the CKT area could be said to be a ‘worker’ as defined by section 296 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULR(C)A).

According to section 296 TULR(C)A, a ‘worker’ is a person who works under either:

an employment contract, a contract for personal service, or a contract with a government department.

Part (b) of the definition was the only part of the legislation that could possibly be applied to the relationship between Deliveroo and its riders. The CAC therefore had to consider whether each rider was obliged to work personally for Deliveroo or whether the rider could provide a substitute to carry out work in his stead.

The CAC noted that Deliveroo’s contract with its riders contained a substitution clause permitting the rider to provide a substitute rider if he did not wish to carry out the delivery himself. Such clauses are common in gig economy contracts, but the right is usually not exercised, leading to a suspicion that the clause is merely a sham to give the illusion of self-employment.

However, in Deliveroo’s case there was evidence that the substitution clause was not merely for show, as the company had proof that one rider had asked a friend to make a delivery on his behalf for which he had pocketed a share of the delivery fee. This evidence was sufficient for the CAC to decide that the right of substitution was “unfettered and genuine”.

The CAC maintained this position despite what it referred to as the ‘substitution conundrum’. To the CAC it appeared to make little business sense that Deliveroo would spend time and energy on hiring, vetting and training its riders only to permit an unknown person who had not been subjected to such vigorous preparation to carry out deliveries for the business. Faced with this anomaly, the CAC noted that its role was not to assess whether a particular business model made good sense or not. It was solely concerned with whether the substitution right was genuine and the CAC believed that it was.

“By allowing an almost unfettered right of substitution, Deliveroo loses visibility, and therefore assurance over who is delivering services in its name, thereby creating a reputational risk, and potentially a regulatory risk, but that is a matter for them. The Riders are not workers within the statutory definition of either [...]