STAFF TO BE OFFERED CONTRACTS AFTER THREE MONTHS UNDER ZERO-HOURS CRACKDOWN
Companies could be forced to offer all staff regular hours after three months as part of a crackdown on zero-hours contracts.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told bosses and unions in a private call on Wednesday that they were working on a policy which could force employers to offer zero-hours workers a regular contract after 12 weeks.
One person involved in the discussions said the legal obligation would follow McDonald’s lead, after the fast-food chain offered staff the chance to switch to contracts with minimum guaranteed hours back in 2017. At the time it said most chose to stay on flexible contracts.
A Whitehall source said ministers wanted to put forward the three-month idea on the call as it was easier to get a “yes or a no” from bosses on a specific figure and then flesh out the details from there.
Businesses and unions on the call were split over whether three months was the right amount of time, one source said, with one business executive understood to have suggested a longer period while a union representative made the case for a shorter one.
The discussion, which was supposed to be an in-person roundtable but was moved to a video conference call at the last minute, comes as ministers race to pin down the details of the Government’s flagship workers’ rights reforms.
Discussions are ramping up as the Government gets closer to unveiling its employment rights bill next month.
Labour has been promising to ban “exploitative” zero-hours contracts as part of its package of reforms, but the details are still being thrashed out following a pushback from businesses earlier this year which led to a decision not to ban zero-hours contracts outright.
A government insider said reforms were aimed at ending “one-sided flexibility”. Proposals being worked up include forcing companies to pay people for late-notice shift cancellations so that workers are not in a position “where their shift is cancelled when they’re already on the bus to work”.
Hospitality and leisure bosses have been warning that a ban would make it harder to hire and cause “unintended consequences” for the economy.
Advocates of zero-hours contracts also argue that they offer staff the flexibility to work when suits them.
Around 1.1m people in Britain, or 3.4pc of the British population, are currently on zero-hours contracts in the UK, according to The Work Foundation at Lancaster University.
The Government has pledged the biggest overhaul of workers’ rights in a generation, but there are concerns among business leaders that some of the changes could backfire.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has said that only 26pc of businesses are confident they can absorb the cost of the plans without a negative impact on growth, investment or jobs.
Whitehall sources told The Telegraph earlier this week that Ms Rayner and Mr Reynolds disagreed over how far plans to hand workers full employment rights from day one in a job should go.
The split is understood to centre on how probation periods will work under the new system.
Ms Rayner is understood to be pushing for full-employment rights from day one following a short probation, while Mr Reynolds is said to favour a probation of almost a year.
“Day one rights is proving very difficult,” a Whitehall source said. “Angela is less keen on a longer probation period, Reynolds thinks nine months is reasonable.
“It’s unclear if an agreement will be reached.”
2024-09-19T06:01:20Z dg43tfdfdgfd