Ivor Adair comments on King’s Speech employment law changes
Parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal to be day one rights for all workers
“Although there is no mention in the speech of the manifesto proposal to merge the categories of employee and worker, the notes to the speech do confirm the intention to make parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal a day one right for all “workers”. Although some leeway will be allowed to employers to assess staff during probationary periods, If the use of “worker” here is intentional, this represents a widening of the current law which could have significant implications for both employers and for the capacity of the Employment Tribunal system.“
Flexible working day one rights
“Day one rights to request flexible working, stated to reflect the modern workplace may give rise to tensions between employers and employees at the recruitment stage in some sectors – most obviously financial services – where there has been a push to get employees back into the office.”
Partnerships likely to welcome reforms of arbitration
“Partnerships in the financial services and professional practice space are likely to welcome proposed reforms to arbitration law, so that awards can be made on a summary basis to address nuisance arguments, which are likely to improve the costs and efficiency of a partnership dispute.
Labour have omitted the manifesto commitment to extending employee rights to workers
“The Bill avoids mention the Labour manifesto proposal to merge the ‘worker’ and ‘employee’ categories – effectively extending employee rights to all workers”.
“This was generally seen as a more complex reform and it looks like this may have been put into the “too difficult” pile, just for now. Instead, it may be that certain rights, including unfair dismissal, are extended to apply to workers as well as employees.”
Pay gap reporting requirement for ethnic minorities and people with disabilities
“One of the most significant changes in the Bill are the extension of equal pay rights and pay gap reporting. The devil will be in the detail particularly in terms of reporting as to how these changes are implemented given the additional complexity of reporting on ethnicity and disability. However, it is likely to elevate diversity and pay inequality issues to serious board level discussion.”
The proposal to establish legislation to place requirements on those working to develop artificial intelligence models, acknowledges the significant impact AI is already having in the workplace and on the future legislative agenda.
