The Employment Rights Bill 2024 was released in October 2024. The proposed changes mark a significant shift in employment regulation.
Zero-hour contracts
The bill proposes that if a worker is under a zero-hours or minimum hours contract, the employer has an obligation to offer them a guaranteed hours contract based on the number of hours the employee worked during the previous reference period. It’s expected the reference period will be set at 12 weeks.
Unfair dismissal
The bill provides that the qualifying period of service, which is currently 2 years, will be removed for the purposes of ordinary unfair dismissal. This means the employees will have the right to claim the right from day one of their employment. A new statutory probationary period will be finalised through consultation but is expected to be set sat 6 months.
Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
The bill proposes to implement 2 key changes:
The removal of the 3 day waiting period before being paid SSP on the fourth day of absence.
Extending eligibility for SSP to those earning less than the lower earnings limit.
Fire and rehire
The bill will make the dismissal of an employee based on the refusal to agree to a contract variation automatically unfair. There will be no 2 year qualifying period and the employer cannot hire another person or the same employee under a new contract with new contractual terms but with substantially identical duties.
