Checking in on the Employment Rights Bill: a step forward for rights at work?
Liam Mullally
17th December 2025
An Employment Rights Act around the corner
Last night, the government’s Employment Rights Bill finally cleared the House of Lords after months of deadlock. Soon it will get Royal Assent and is largely scheduled to come into effect in 2026.
The Employment Rights Bill started life as the New Deal for Working People (2023 and 2024): a platform to roll back anti-union legislation by expanding the rights of workers, and a major feature of Labour’s successful 2024 election campaign.
Labour’s reforms aimed to boost wages, protect flexible working conditions, and update trade union legislation. They envisioned a cooperative partnership between trade unions, employers, and the government, centred on good faith negotiations. Key initiatives included banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, ending fire and rehire practices, requiring statutory sick pay from the first day of illness and establishing new Fair Pay Agreements – effectively introducing sectoral collective bargaining to sectors like adult social care.
However, while some of this has gone ahead, much of the New Deal for Working People has been abandoned, watered down or delayed. Below is a summary of New Deal for Working People proposals through Labour’s 2024 Manifesto and into the final version of the Employment Rights Bill:
| NDWP Pledge | Part of 2024 manifesto? | Status |
| Repeal the Trade Union Act 2016, including strengthening bargaining rights | Yes | Part of the Employment Rights Bill (though some aspects will need secondary legislation to come into effect) |
| Ban zero-hour contracts | Yes | Part of the Employment Rights Bill (zero hours workers will have a right to a contract reflecting their regular hours) |
End fire and rehire | Yes | Part of the Employment Rights Bill (excluding circumstances of financial stress) |
| Increase the minimum wage to a ‘real living wage | Yes | Increased to £12.21 per hour, which is less than a ‘real living wage’ |
| Improved parental leave | Yes | Part of the Employment Rights Bill |
| Day one rights (parental leave, statutory sick pay, protection from unfair dismissal) | Yes | The qualifying period for unfair dismissal will be six months, reduced from two years. Parental sick leave and statutory sick pay will become day one rights, however |
| Creation of a single body to enforce employment rights | Yes | Part of Employment Rights Bill as the ‘Fair Work Agency’, from April 2026 |
| Reform to Work Capability Assessment as part of plan to support more disabled people into work | Yes | Significantly tightened assessment criteria and cuts to PIP benefits |
| Devolved funding for employment support | Yes | Abandoned (last mentioned in the Plan to Make Work Pay) |
| Single ‘worker’ status | No | Abandoned (last mentioned in the Plan to Make Work Pay) |
| A ‘right to switch off’ | No | Abandoned (last mentioned in the Plan to Make Work Pay) |
| Protections from workplace automation and surveillance | No | Abandoned (last mentioned in the Plan to Make Work Pay) |
| Eliminate pay gaps (gender, disability, ethnic minority groups) | Yes | Watered down for the 2024 Manifesto and not mentioned since |
| Creation of a Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care | Yes | Planned within Employment Rights Bill but with no timeline for implementation |
| Reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body | Yes | Part of the Employment Rights Bill, to come into effect 2027–8 |
| Improved health and safety (e.g. for workers working in high temperatures) | No | Abandoned (last mentioned in the Plan to Make Work Pay) |
| Improved protections against workplace harassment | Yes | Part of the Employment Rights Bill |
| Paid carer’s leave | No | Abandoned (last mentioned in the Plan to Make Work Pay) |
| Improved access to bereavement leave | No | Abandoned (last mentioned in the Plan to Make Work Pay) |
| Raising awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace | No | Abandoned (last mentioned in the Plan to Make Work Pay) |
So long to the ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’
Most of the commitments which made it into Labour’s 2024 manifesto have become part of the Employment Rights Bill. Notably, this excludes devolved funding for employment support and measures to eliminate pay gaps, which have been quietly dropped. Similarly, promises to reform Work Capability Assessments to help more disabled people access work have been replaced by significant cuts which will reduce access to PIP, living adjustment payments which are used, among other things, to access work. As part of the final negotiations to get the legislation through the House of Lords, unfair dismissal rights were also watered down from ‘day-one’ rights to come in at six months.
However, many of the commitments made in the 2024 white paper ‘Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay’ did not even make the 2024 manifesto, and it is unlikely we will see these. These include a ‘right to switch off’, a single ‘worker’ status and safety provisions for working in the heat, all of which appear to have been dropped by the government.
Significant measures which could meaningfully shift bargaining power and strengthen labour remain in the Employment Rights Bill: most significantly, repealing the 2016 Trade Union Act and establishing fairer rules for industrial organisation and action.
These are, even after thinning down, positive steps which should strengthen the labour movement’s capacity for action. They might mark the beginning of a process of rolling back a decades-long erosion of legal rights to organisation – but only if they are built upon.
Strengthening unions’ rights to organise and carry out industrial action
Labour rights to organisation have been steadily eroded since the big clashes of the 1970s. Successive waves of legislation have targeted the industrial rights of workers:
The 1980 Employment Act restricted picketing to one’s own place of work (making it illegal to join another’ s picket in support). It also placed restrictions on secondary action, action undertaken in support of other workers or as part of a political strike.
The 1990 Employment Act banned all secondary action, and made closed shops (workplaces in which you must be a union member) illegal.
The 1992 Trade Union & Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act consolidates this older legislation, and remains the legal framework around which later laws have been constructed.
The 1993 Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act introduced for the first time a requirement to give 7 days notice before any action is taken and defined ballots for industrial action as valid for 12 months. Wage councils – sectoral bargaining bodies which set minimum pay & conditions – were abolished with the exception of the Agricultural Wages Board exceptions.
The 2013 Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act completed the abolition of Wage Councils.
In 2016, the Trade Union Act was passed with a number of measures intended to make industrial action much harder to carry out, and less strategically effective when used. This remains the most significant piece of legislation defining existing labour rights.
Under the legislation, trade unions are required to have a turnout of over 50% to successfully pass a ballot for industrial action. If most of those eligible to vote work in “important public services” (fire, health, education, border security or nuclear) then the union must also secure votes in favour from 40% of the total eligible cohort. In a case of 50% turnout, for instance, this would require 80% of those voting to vote in favour of action.
Unions must also now give 14 days warning for any industrial action, and ballots only remain valid for 6 to 9 months. Together, these rules force unions to plan action significantly in advance and make it very difficult to modify strategy at short notice.
The 2023 Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act allows the government to require minimum levels of service in “important public services” (again fire, health, education, border security and nuclear) during strikes.
Measures for trade unions in the Employment Rights Bill
Labour’s Employment Rights Bill totally repeals the 2023 Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act and replaces the 2016 Trade Union Act, weakening some measures and removing others.
For instance, ballots will once again be valid for 12 months (as they were pre-2016) and the notice required for taking action reduced to 10 days (though this is still higher than it was pre-2016). Prohibitive reporting rules around industrial action are also being removed. Special, harder rules for “important public services” will be removed, including minimum service requirements during strike action.
The bill includes provisions to make balloting easier: trade unions would, for instance, only need a simple majority in order to take action – which is significantly easier to achieve than the 40% turnout that is currently required. However, these changes will require secondary legislation to come into effect.
On the one hand, it is right to say that this is the most significant boost to trade union rights since the 1970s; on the other it nonetheless falls short of realising the rights available even in the 1990s. It is concerning that some of these measures will not come into effect with the bill, as they require additional secondary legislation. Measures that make it easier to undertake industrial action, and which make industrial action more effective, are badly needed, however, and these should be welcomed as a first step towards doing this.
Legislating to boost bargaining power
If it is to have a significant impact on bargaining power, a legislative approach to union organisation needs to do more than repeal the regressive legislation of the 2010s, and look also to rules passed in the 1980s and 90s.
In general, legislation that was passed with the intention of making action harder, rather than fairer, should be repealed. This includes the requirement to give notice for specific periods of industrial action.
One way of helping union membership to grow would be to broaden the terms on which workers are allowed industrial action. This could take the form of a ‘right to withhold’ for all workers who can meet the democratic requirements of collective action. This would mean repealing bans on secondary or political action in cases where there is a democratic mandate.
Through a ‘right to withhold’, members could extend solidaristic action to workers in other industries and sectors.
Autonomy is currently undertaking research on the state of labour power in the UK – a full report on which will be coming next year.
Liam Mullally is a Researcher at the Autonomy Institute, and a member of our UBS Hub.