The Employment Rights Bill was introduced to parliament.

The Employment Rights Bill goes through several rounds of parliamentary readings, before getting Royal Assent, and becoing the Employment Rights Act, on Thursday 18 December.

Triggering changes to trade union legislation:

Once the Bill receivesd Royal Assent, the Strikes (Minimum Services Levels) Act 2023 was repealed in full, alongside major aspects of the Trade Union Act 2016 (with further provisions of the Act to be repealed via a commencement order at a later date).

• Ensuring fair pay for a fair day’s work: Removing the lower earnings limit and waiting period for Statutory Sick Pay;

• Modernising trade union legislation: Simplifying the trade union recognition process and digital/workplace balloting systems;

• Prioritising fairness, equality and wellbeing: Implementing enhanced whistleblower protections;

• Streamlining enforcement of employment rights: Establishing new a Fair Work Agency body; and

• Supporting family rights: Bringing in day-one paternity leave and unpaid parental leave.

• Balancing out one-sided flexibility: Banning fire-and-rehire practices;

• Ensuring fair pay for a fair day’s work: Bringing forward regulations to establish the Fair Pay Agreement Adult Social Care Negotiating Body; strengthening tipping laws;

• Modernising trade union legislation: Introducing new rights and protections for trade union representatives; strengthening trade unions’ right of access; and extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action;

• Prioritising fairness, equality and wellbeing: Bringing in an ‘All reasonable steps’ requirement for employers to prevent sexual harassment; introducing an obligation on employers not to permit the harassment of their employees by third parties; and allowing relevant employers to voluntarily produce gender pay gap and menopause action plans (ahead of this becoming mandatory in 2027); and

• Streamlining enforcement of employment rights: Bringing into effect employment tribunal time limits.

• Balancing out one-sided flexibility: Introducing protection from unfair dismissal from ‘day-one’; setting a new collective consultation threshold for redundancies; and banning zero-hours contracts;

• Prioritising fairness, equality and wellbeing: Requiring relevant employers to produce gender pay gap and menopause action plans (if not done so voluntarily after April 2026); introducing a power to enable regulations to specify steps that determine whether an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment; and bringing in changes to unfair dismissal;

• Streamlining enforcement of employment rights: Regulating umbrella companies; and

• Supporting family rights: Introducing new rights for pregnant workers; strengthening the existing ‘day-one’ right to request flexible working; and implementing a new right to unpaid bereavement leave.