The first new government minister to feature on Laura Kuenssberg’s flagship BBC Sunday morning show, Labour’s new Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, wasted no time, as he walked through a raft employment law changes.

This could hold a clue as to just how central employment law changes will be to the new government’s agenda, and whilst the Plan to Make Work Pay is short on detail, it is big on ambition.

If enacted, it will lead to some of the most significant changes to employment law seen in many years. But what is Labour proposing exactly? Louise Taft, employment lawyer at Jurit LLP, explores.

As part of their mission to grow Britain’s economy and raise living standards across the country, Labour aims to “deliver a new deal for working people” which will “boost wages, make work more secure and support working people to thrive.”

They will do this by introducing a range of legislation within 100 days of entering government, whilst consulting fully with businesses and workers before any legislation is passed.

HR practitioners therefore need to monitor for developments to establish just what will change and any unintended consequences that Labour proposals may have.

To help you get ahead, here’s a whistlestop tour of what HR professionals can expect in the coming months.

Day 1 Rights

This has the potential to have the biggest impact on day-to-day HR practice.

Labour will scrap the two-year qualification period to bring claims for unfair dismissal, though still allowing for probationary periods.

As ever, the devil will be in the detail in order to fairly dismiss at the end of a probationary period and what period of time will be considered fair, so HR professionals will need to wait and see.

Zero Hours Contracts

Labour will end one-sided flexibility, ban exploitative zero hours contracts and introduce the right to a contract that reflects the number of hours worked over a 12-week reference period.

They also want to ensure workers get reasonable notice of change in shifts or working time, with compensation available for cancelled or shortened shifts.

Fire and rehire

Fire and rehire will be banned under the new government, but they also recognise that there will be a limited number of cases where this will remain possible if the alternative is bankruptcy and mass redundancy, because businesses must be able to restructure to remain viable.

Labour will target “proper process based on dialogue and common understanding”. This points to a strengthening of the ACAS Code of Practice as opposed to an outright ban, but time will tell.

Single Worker Status

Another significant change will be the proposal to create a single status of worker.

This will remove the hybrid “worker” status which gives the right to claim under the Equality Act and rights to the minimum wage and holiday pay, but not the right to bring unfair dismissal claims or the right to redundancy.

This is something Labour recognises will need to be consulted on, so it is unlikely to be implemented immediately.

Redundancy, TUPE and Whistleblowing

This government vows to change the rules on collective consultation so that the trigger is not the number made redundant in anyone “establishment” but, rather, across the business.

They plan to reinforce existing rights and protections in TUPE situations, but there is no detail yet on what this might entail.

Whilst Labour promises to strengthen protection for whistleblowers, including women reporting sexual harassment, we await more on what this might entail.

Self-Employment

The new government is proposing more support for the 4.5 million self-employed people in the UK.

They will do this with a right to a written contract, action to tackle late payment and the ability to extend health and safety and blacklisting protections.

Flexible Working

Labour says it will make flexible working the default from day one for all workers, except where it is “not reasonably feasible”.

This isn’t far away from the proposal made by the Conservative government that resulted in recent relatively minor changes to flexible working legislation. HR professionals will have to wait and see what this entails.

Parental Rights

Labour is set to review the parental leave system within their first year of government. However, we don’t yet know what they propose to change, so HR professionals will need to monitor this over the coming months.

Maternity Discrimination, Carer’s & Bereavement Leave

One concrete proposal is to make it unlawful to dismiss a woman within six months of returning from maternity leave “except in specific circumstances”.

Labour also plans to review the recently introduced Carer’s Leave and look at paid Carer’s Leave, whilst giving the right to bereavement leave for all workers.

Right to ‘Switch Off’

Last year, Angela Rayner told the Financial Times that: “Constant emails and calls outside of work should not be the norm and is harming work-life balance for many.”

Following in the footsteps of France, Labour promises to bring in a new policy which would restrict bosses from contacting workers outside of hours by phone or email, but it is not clear exactly what this will mean in terms of legislation.

Minimum Wage

You can expect the new government to scrap the age bands that form part of the Minimum Wage in a bid to deliver a more genuine living wage.

Labour also wants to require the Low Pay Commission to take account of the cost of living when setting the rates.

Meanwhile the new government will also work with the Single Enforcement Body and HMRC to step up enforcement by businesses, including penalties for non-compliance, as well as to make sure that regulations on travel time are implemented properly.

Sick Pay

The new government aims to deliver on their promise to lower the earnings threshold for statutory sick pay, opening up access to sick pay to an estimated 1.5 million workers. They will also make workers eligible to claim sick pay from day one of falling ill.

Internships

In line with EU proposals, Labour plans to ban unpaid internships, except where as part of an education or training course, in a bid to clamp down on unscrupulous employers.

Equality and Equal Pay

To prevent outsourcing being “used by employers to avoid paying equal pay”, Labour will introduce legislation which will likely allow outsourced employees to compare themselves with workers at the end user. There will also be regulatory enforcement unit for equal pay to ensure compliance, meanwhile, large firms will be “required to develop, publish and implement action plans to close their gender pay gaps”.

Going forwards, this would mean that outsourced workers would need to be included in gender pay gap reporting and mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting will also be introduced.

Large employers will also be required to produce Menopause Action Plans and guidance will be available for smaller employers on matters such as uniform, temperature, flexible working and recording menopause related absences.

Employment Tribunal time limits

To allow more time for internal procedures to resolve employment disputes, Labour plans to increase the time limit for presenting a claim from three to six months of an alleged act.

Whilst this proposal would leave more time for settlement of disputes before the time limit forces workers into the Employment Tribunal system, it could lead to a lengthier period of uncertainty for employers.

Collective bargaining

There are significant proposals around trade union legislation that are beyond the scope of this article, but Labour also promises to address sector specific collective bargaining in the social care and education sectors.

As can be seen, there are some potentially seismic proposals here. However, many of them lack detail and/or are subject to consultation at the moment, but what is clear is that with a significant change in politics will come significant changes for HR practice.