We now know the general election will be on July4th.The polls are predicting a Labour victory and although neither party has yet to publish their manifesto Labour have issued various documents including Equality at work on Friday spelling out their intentions in the employment area especially within their 1st 100 days in office – this is what they are planning:
- A day-one right to claim unfair dismissal, abolishing the current two-year period before employees can bring such a claim. Employees will be able to bring a claim from the end of their probationary period, so businesses should ensure these are in place for all employees, and that they have the right to extend it if necessary.
- Personal liability for directors if Tribunal orders are not complied with.
- Introduce atime limit of 6 months rather than 3 to bring unfair dismissal calims to tribunal
- Banning zero-hour contracts this will probably not be a blanket ban but will push employers to set out required working practices in a planned manner.
- A right to disconnect, allowing employees to object to any work-related calls or emails outside working hours.
- Removing the 3-day waiting period for SSP.
- Ethnic and disability pay gap reporting which will apply to initially to largrer employers
- Introduction of electronic balloting and lowering of thresholds in union disputes.
- Single status of worker
- Improve parental leave system
- Introduce paid carers leave
- introduce paid bereavement leave
- Ban unpaid internships
- Extra protection from redundancy for pregnant employees
clearly it will be difficult to bring all these proposals into law within 100days but you should begin now to review your policies and contracts to determine what needs to be addressed
Given that parliament has dissolved the following proposed changes have been lost
- Limit non-compete restrictions in employment contracts to three months.
- Reintroduction of fees to bring claims to the Employment tribunal..