On 10 October 2024, the new Labour Government published the Employment Rights Bill. Described as a "once-in-a-generation" overhaul of workers' rights, the Bill sets out the first phase of Labour's key employment law reforms. The Next Steps to Make Work Pay confirms how other measures will be taken forward, including legislating by other means, through non-legislative delivery or longer-term reform.
The wide-ranging reforms contained within the 158-page Bill include the following proposals:
1. Collective redundancy
Currently, the duty to collectively consult arises where an employer is proposing to dismiss as redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment within a period of 90 days or less. The Bill proposes to remove the words "at one establishment" so that the number of proposed redundancies for collective redundancy consultation purposes will be determined across the business.
2. Simplifying the process for trade union recognition and rights of trade unions to access workplaces (see Factsheet: Trade Unions in the Employment Rights Bill)
To provide workers with a meaningful right to organise through trade unions, the Bill makes preparations for the 10% threshold for the Civil Arbitration Committee (CAC) to accept a trade union application (and at other stages of the recognition scheme) to be replaced with a less onerous test of anywhere between 2% and 10%. It also removes the requirement for a union to demonstrate that there is likely to be majority support for trade union recognition and removes the 40% support threshold from recognition ballots.
New rights of access will enable trade unions and employers to enter into "access agreements" for union officials to access the employer's workplace for the purposes of meeting, representing, recruiting or organising workers, or facilitating collective bargaining (but not to organise industrial action).
