British employers will be able to bypass the heavy obligations to offer the staff guaranteed working hours and to pay if they have an agreement in place with a union, under the law on the rights of new government workers.
Government amendments To its flagship bill of employment rights, create a potential extinguishing from the provided for the zero hour “operators” contracts when there is a written collective agreement between the employer and one or more independent unions.
Changes could create a strong incentive for employers from the low -wage sectors to take collective negotiation arrangements with a union, given a general concern concerning the complexity and practical difficulty of the application of the new rules. They were published early Wednesday, among more than 200 changes to the law on workers' rights.
“It is a very powerful incentive to have a union (recognition agreement),” said Michael Ford, a KC in employment law which had called the change together With Alan Bogg, professor of labor law at the University of Bristol. The pair had raised fears that the rules were practically impassable in certain sectors and could potentially turn against workers with caring responsibilities which meant that they were unable to engage in regular hours.
The employment bill encompasses a wider band of changes to strengthen Union rights. The changes define more details on the measures allowing unions to more easily access workplaces and to gain collective negotiation rights with employers – including by digital access – and to make it faster and easier to take strike measures.
A right to a contract reflecting the regular hours of workers is one of the key measures of the bill, aimed at strengthening the safety of low -paid workers whose hours and profits often fluctuate from one month to the next, which makes the budget or loan difficult for a mortgage.
The intention is to oblige employers to offer workers a contract reflecting their regular work model; give them a reasonable opinion of a quarter of work; And compensate for them when the quarter -work is canceled in the short term. The modifications published this week clearly indicated that the provisions would include the workers of the agency, although precise details are still to be decided.
Employers have said they support the underlying principle of offering workers more security. But they add that the new requirements are very difficult to reconcile with the seasonal or unpredictable nature of demand in many sectors, such as an increase in retail work before Christmas, the ice cream salons depend on the weather and the supplies of supplies covering an unexpected disease.
Because of these concerns, the key details of the proposals – including workers it will cover and how their normal hours will be assessed – have not yet been decided. Instead, the provisions that already come up against dozens of pages give ministers to decide details in the subsequent regulations.
Caspar Glyn KC, president of the employment Lawyers Association, said that the provisions written were “excessively complex” and “practically impracticable”, as well as almost impossible to apply individual workers to a court.
“This is the heaviest thing I have ever seen in employment law,” said Darren Newman, lawyer and employment consultant. The opt-out for employers who have reached an agreement with a union “meaning”, he added, noting that the local authorities employing low hours workers in schools and elsewhere were one of those who could already have agreements in place.
In order to win a sculpture, a collective agreement should contain “conditions that expressly exclude” or “expressly replace” new duties or rights, as well as the integration of these terms in workers' contracts and inform them in writing.
Nicola Smith, director of policies of the Union Congress, said that the Union's umbrella body had welcomed the change, which was an opportunity for employers “to recognize the advantages of collective negotiation”, and to go beyond the minimum requirements of the legislation.
