The government’s Employment Rights Bill for Great Britain, which is now on its journey to become law, will make hugely significant improvements to working life.
As a union representing over one million women working in public services, UNISON believes there is huge potential for the bill to be life-changing for women, who make up the majority of low-paid workers.
Key provisions for flexible working, parental leave and protection from discrimination and harassment will enable more women to stay in the workplace while balancing care responsibilities.
The government also plans to use the new legislation to rebalance the scales of zero-hours contracts, the majority of which are worked by women.
Flexible and family-friendly working
The government intends to make flexible working a day one right for all workers, by default, which means that it’s available from the moment someone starts a job. UNISON believes that all jobs can have some form of flexibility built in.
Flexible working for all will make the workplace more secure for parents, particularly women, who take on the bulk of care responsibilities within their families. UNISON’s joint research with The Work Foundation found that people working insecure jobs often did so in order to try and balance work around other factors in their lives, such as caring responsibilities.
Working from home, and working flexibly, allows women to balance their care commitments. Research from the Fawcett Society has found that 40% of women say access to flexible working means they can take on more paid work.
Parental and paternity leave will also become day one rights; the government has also committed to review parental and carer’s leave. UNISON welcomes this review and hopes that it will pave the way for a new right for paid carer’s leave.
The bill will also expand bereavement leave for all, introducing a new day one right to protected time off for employees to grieve the loss of a loved one. Bereavement can have a significant impact on a person and their work. If workers are not adequately supported with appropriate, paid, time off, this can lead to longer term impacts on health and wellbeing which impact on people’s ability to stay in work.
Protection from discrimination and harassment
The bill will increase protections from sexual harassment in the workplace, introduce gender pay gap action plans, strengthen protections for workers through menopause and strengthen rights for pregnant workers.
Workplace sexual harassment is a systemic problem, with three in five working women reporting that they have experienced it. The Worker Protection Act 2023 already provides significant new protections from sexual harassment, including an obligation for employers to take reasonable steps to protect their employees from harassment. The bill will fortify this by creating a duty for employers to take ‘all’ reasonable steps to protect employees. UNISON hopes this will include measures to address third party harassment from contractors, customers and clients.
Meanwhile, the bill will require employers with more than 250 employees to create ‘equality action plans’ that outline measures to close their gender pay gap and support employees going through the menopause.
On average, women take home £574 less than men each month due to the pay gap, and although nearly 8 in 10 menopausal women are in work, there is so far no mandatory duty for employers to support them.
UNISON has already won significant agreements with many public sector employers to introduce UNISON’s own model menopause policy but the bill will ensure that employers in the private and independent sectors must also take action.
According to the Women’s Budget Group, the most widespread employment law issue women seek help with is pregnancy and maternity discrimination. The bill will also protect pregnant workers from redundancy for up to six months on return to work. This new protection from dismissal is a significant win which will provide women with the security of employment in the vital early months after a baby’s birth. This is set to drastically improve the lives of new mothers.
Zero and low-hour contracts
In the UK, one in five workers are in severely insecure work, facing a mix of low pay, unpredictable hours, poor protections and limited career progression.
Zero-hour contracts are symptomatic of the deep imbalances of power in the labour market and the ability of unscrupulous employers to exploit vulnerability to enforce a one-way flexibility.
The government has stated its intention to rebalance the scales and ensure everyone has the right to have a guaranteed hours contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, based on a 12-week reference period.
If these measures go ahead, they will most improve the working lives of Black women, who according to TUC research are three times more likely to be working zero-hours contracts than white men.
The bill also introduces a right to a reasonable notice of shifts and payment for shift cancellation and curtailment at short notice for those who opt to remain on zero-hour and low-hour contracts.
‘Long overdue’
More than 40% of insecure workers earning less than £18,000 per year said they were in their current job due to limitations including lack of available childcare. New regulations on flexible working and low-hour contracts will drastically improve job security for these workers.
UNISON national officer for equalities Josie Irwin says: “Labour’s Employment Rights Bill is a big step towards women’s equality in the workplace. Lack of flexible work currently locks too many women out of work, especially mothers and carers, and is a factor in the gender pay gap.
“More opportunities for working flexibly means women would be able to take on more paid work. Ending exploitative zero-hour contracts would provide much-needed job security, particularly in sectors where women are overrepresented, such as social care. The bill could be a genuine game-changer and is long overdue.”
