Although January 2025 is the latest date for the next General Election in all likelihood it will take place later this year. So what do the main parties have planned for employment?
The Labour Party
Labour has committed to publishing an Employment Rights Bill within 100 days if it is elected to office.
It will repeal the controversial Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, as well as the Trade Unions Act 2016 which introduced longer notice periods for industrial action, higher ballot thresholds for public services and a six-month expiry deadline for ballot mandates.
Trade unions will be given a new right to access workplaces, and the statutory recognition process will be simplified so that gig economy and remote workers can meaningfully organise through trade unions.
A Labour government will boost collective bargaining to improve workers' pay, terms and conditions. It would do this via the rollout of sectorial collective bargaining across the economy, starting with fair pay agreements in the adult social care sector. These will establish minimum terms and conditions including those relating to pay, pensions, working time, holidays, training, diversity and inclusion and health and safety. It will also put in place measures to outlaw the use of predictive technology for blacklisting and safeguard against singling out workers for mistreatment or dismissal without any evidence of union interaction.
Labour has committed to banning zero-hours contracts and "fire and rehire" practices, as well as introducing a new right to "switch off" and to protect workers from remote surveillance. It plans to create a single "worker" status within its first term. It has also committed to increasing statutory sick pay, making it available to all workers from day one. It will raise the national minimum wage to cover the cost of living.
Labour will make efforts to end the gender pay gap faster, and tackle sexual harassment at work by introducing a duty on employers to take reasonable steps to stop sexual harassment before it starts.
It will introduce a mandatory disability pay gap reporting requirement for larger businesses and facilitate workers securing reasonable adjustments from their employers. It plans to introduce a new Race Equality Act which would tackle structural racism, including the issue of low pay for ethnic minorities, with fines for organisations not taking appropriate action on their pay data.
Finally it plans to make the right to flexible working a day one right; going further than the Conservatives who are introducing a day one right to make a flexible working request.
The Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats have committed, like Labour, to give everyone a new day one right to flexible working if they come into power, as well as giving every person with disabilities the right to work from home if they want to.
They will aim to fix the skills and recruitment crisis by investing in people's skills and increasing the availability of apprenticeships and career advice for young people.
They will address the labour shortages that have resulted from Brexit by negotiating reciprocal deals on low-cost, fast-tracked work visas for key economic sectors.
The Conservative Party
No specific plans were mentioned at the Conservative conference last year, but having said that there are plenty of developments over the coming months.
In April there will be changes to the flexible working regime by virtue of which an employee will be entitled to make two requests in any 12-month period. The employer won't be permitted to refuse a request unless the employee has been consulted with. The day one right to request flexible working will also be introduced.
April also sees the introduction of a new and flexible entitlement of one week's unpaid leave per year for employees who are providing or arranging care. Existing redundancy protections while on maternity, adoption or shared parental leave will be extended to cover pregnancy and a period of time after a new parent has returned to work. There will also be changes to statutory paternity leave to, amongst other things, enable fathers/partners to take leave as two one-week, non-consecutive blocks at any point in the first year after birth/adoption.
The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 will give workers and agency workers the right to request a predictable work pattern from September. Meanwhile, the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 will introduce a duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees in October.
Finally 2025 will see the introduction of a right to up to 12 weeks of paid leave for eligible employed parents whose new-born baby is admitted to neonatal care.
