Enhanced Rights And Protections For Workers

The ‘Good Work plan’ comes in response to the independent Taylor Review, published last year, which investigated what impact modern working practices are having on the world of work.

The review found that the strength of the UK’s labour market is built on flexibility but that a clearer focus is needed on quality of work as well as the quantity of jobs.

The government have set out proposals to ensure workers know their rights and receive the benefits and protections they are entitled to, and that action is taken against employers who breach workers’ rights.

In some cases the government plans to go further than the review’s proposals, including:

• enforcing vulnerable workers’ holiday and sick pay for the first time
• a list of day-one rights including holiday and sick pay entitlements and a new right to a payslip for all workers, including casual and zero-hour workers
• a right for all workers, not just zero-hour and agency, to request a more stable contract, providing more financial security for those on flexible contracts

The government will seek to protect workers’ rights by:

• take further action to ensure unpaid interns are not doing the job of a worker
• introducing a new naming scheme for employers who fail to pay employment tribunal awards
• quadrupling employment tribunal fines for employers showing malice, spite or gross oversight to £20,000 and considering increasing penalties for employers who have previously lost similar cases

The government will ensure workers are paid fairly by:

• providing all 1.2 million agency workers with a clear breakdown of who pays them and any costs or charges deducted from their wages
• asking the Low Pay Commission to consider the impact of higher minimum wage rates for workers on zero-hour contracts
• considering repealing laws allowing agencies to employ workers on cheaper rates