General election 2024: Labour’s day one employment rights could bring more litigation

Posted: 27/06/2024

Employment law is often used by political parties as an opportunity to make changes that do not bring a huge financial cost to the public purse. Instead, they move the risk around between employer and employee. On the left parties can be seen to be supporting workers’ rights during a cost-of-living crisis without costing the government a fortune, others can argue they are protecting business.

Clients will not have been waiting for manifestos to be revealed with bated breath; they are used to employment law changes. However, several announcements will have caused them to prick up their ears.

Labour’s biggest employment law shift, if elected, would be to introduce more employment rights for employees from day one. Currently, an employee must have two years’ continuous service before they can pursue a claim such as unfair dismissal. If Labour is elected, this will be reduced. While any reform would be subject to introducing rules relating to probation periods and, as always, the devil is in the detail, this change could have significant repercussions. It may make employers more cautious when recruiting; also, if this law is introduced, but not immediately, there is a risk of a significant spike in dismissals for those staff who are already employed, but do not yet have the length of service to claim unfair dismissal. It could also lead to more litigation as employees who do not have the right to bring a claim under the current law gain the ability to take claims to employment tribunals.

Other Labour policies include ending 'exploitative' zero hours contracts (though no detail is given) and proposing a consultation over changes to self-employed worker status. Labour’s proposals are designed to lead to a two-part framework for employee status – worker and self-employed – rather than the current three (employee, worker and self-employed). Any reform to simplify employment status would be welcome, but it would take significant time for any policy to be effective and it is likely we would see considerable subsequent litigation around what status 'workers' will have under any new framework...

One of the Conservatives’ more eye-catching policies that could impact employment and other litigation is to introduce legislation to clarify the Equality Act, so that an individual can only have one sex in the eyes of the law in the United Kingdom. As previously planned they will also continue with laws around minimum service levels during industrial action. This is highly relevant, and we have been advising more clients on trade union matters in the last few years than in the previous decade.

The manifestos touch on other areas such as regulations to monitor ethnicity and disability, and building on regulations surrounding the gender pay gap. What no manifesto mentions is legislation around the future of work in terms of AI. Labour refers to working with 'workers and their trade unions, employers and experts' to consider the impact of AI on 'work, jobs and skills, but again no firm proposals are made. Similarly, many are asking when laws will emerge surrounding matters such as surveillance or face recognition. Even if we are heading for reforms with the entrance of a new government, they are unlikely to be as wide as some people anticipate. 

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