Improvements to workers’ rights to include day-one universal sick pay and an end to zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire

Labour’s employment rights bill is the biggest step towards enacting one of its key election offers: to make sweeping changes to rights at work and improve pay. Here are the main details of the legislation, though much of it will take more than two years to consult on and implement.

Day-one rights

Workers will qualify for protection against unfair dismissal from day one – a benefit for 9 million people. Previously, employees must have been at their place of work for at least two years in order to qualify.

There will also be day-one rights for paternity leave and unpaid parental leave. Maternity leave is already a day-one right. A full review of all parental-leave rights is promised alongside the bill.

An extra 30,000 fathers or partners will be brought into scope for paternity leave, while an additional 1.5 million parents will gain flexibility, with unpaid parental leave becoming a right from day one. There will also be a requirement for employers to establish a policy for bereavement leave.

Sick pay

There will be a universal entitlement to sick pay from the first day of illness for employees. Workers will get rights to sick pay from day one, rather than from day four.

Statutory sick pay is 116.75 a week and can be paid for up to 28 weeks, as long as the employee is earning an average of at least 123 a week. The government says this will be “...

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