The Good Jobs Bill: Five major proposals to shake up employment law

This consultation was an opportunity to find out what people really thought of the proposals to create new employment laws in Northern Ireland.

The consultation looked at four areas: terms of employment; pay and benefits; work-life balance; and voice and representation.

Should all of government’s proposals get the seal of approval, this could dramatically shake up the world of employment law as we know it.

So what do we know so far?

Here are just a few proposals making headlines…

The Department for the Economy proposes taking a number of big steps to overhaul employment laws, including:

Ending “exploitative” zero hour contracts

This would give workers on zero and low hour contracts a new right to have a ”banded hours contract” that accurately reflects their working pattern. That’s if they tend to regularly work more than the working hours laid out in their contract.

To be eligible for a banded hours contract, workers would need to meet a certain qualifying criteria.

What’s important for you to know as employer, is that you would have to inform any zero and lower hour staff about their right to this type of contract at the start of their employment.

Ending “exploitative” fire and rehire practices

Another key proposal lands on fire and rehire practices – and how not to go about changing a worker’s terms and conditions.

This proposal would make it automatically unfair to end someone’s employment in order to make changes to their T&Cs where there isn’t consent to do so.

Meaning, an employee would have to agree to any changes to their contract first. The only exception to this is if there was no other possible way you could reasonably avoid the need to make this change.

Giving workers the right to receive all tips

This is a big one for the hospitality sector and businesses who regularly accept customer tips.

Under this next proposal, you would have a legal obligation to pass on any and all customer tips (aside from the legal deductions you may need to make) to your staff.

If you’re in charge of managing tips, you would need to share them out in a fair and transparent way amongst your workforce. You wouldn’t be able to keep any tips to put back into your business.

Enhancing rights for working parents

There is also a call to enhance the rights of working parents.

Part of this involves extending redundancy protections for pregnant employees. This protection would start from the moment your employee tells you they’re pregnant - and last until 18 months after the birth of their child.

There are also proposals to make paternity leave more flexible. So instead of having to take one block of leave in one go, parents could take either a single block of two weeks or two blocks of one week at a time they choose (as long as it’s within 52 weeks of the birth or adoption).

Introducing a brand new leave entitlement

There is a proposal to introduce a new unpaid leave entitlement to staff with caring responsibilities.

This would give employees who care for a family member or dependant with a long-term care need the right to take up to one week of unpaid time off in a 12 month period.

Note: eligible staff would still have to give a certain amount of notice to take this kind of leave.

What are your next steps?

The above are only a handful of the proposed reforms outlined on the document and the Department does plan on creating an official “Good Jobs” Employment Rights Bill.

Because there are so many proposed changes (with some further in their development than others), we don’t yet know when (or if) all of them will come into force.

But in the interim, it’s important to remember your Peninsula advisers and documentation experts are on hand to support you. If you have a query about the law or an issue with your paperwork, don’t hesitate to reach out.

And if you’re not already a Peninsula client, tap below to book in for a free consultation with an HR expert today: