The Employment Rights Bill, which formed part of the legislative programme outlined in the King’s Speech, has now been introduced into Parliament.

Some of the key provisions included in the Bill are:

• Workers on zero-hours contracts will be entitled to reasonable notice of shift changes and payment for cancellation of shifts at short notice. Employers must also periodically offer guaranteed-hours contracts to zero-hours workers;
• The two-year qualifying period for protection from unfair dismissal will be removed;
• It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to vary their contract of employment. There is an exception where the variation is to prevent or significantly reduce financial difficulties likely to affect the employer’s ability to carry on as a going concern, and the employer could not reasonably have avoided the need to make the variation;
• Requests for flexible working may only be refused if it is reasonable for the employer to do so on one or more specific grounds, such as the burden of additional costs, detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand, and inability to reorganise work among existing staff.
• Employers will be required to take all reasonable steps to prevent harassment of their employees by third parties;
• Statutory sick pay and parental and paternity leave will be available from the first day of employment.

The Bill can be found on Parliament’s website.

The government has also published a Next Steps document outlining reforms it aims to implement in the future. This includes the ‘right to switch off’, whereby employees will have the right not to be contacted by their employer outside working hours.